


The Path of Fireflies

by museaway



Series: The Path of Fireflies [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Bed & Breakfast, DCBB 2014, Domestic, Falling In Love, Future Fic, Gorgeous fanart by nonexistenz, Human Castiel, M/M, Romance, Vermont
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2375327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/pseuds/museaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his humanity is restored, Dean wakes up in bed with Castiel, a wedding ring, and no memory of the past twelve years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】The Path of Fireflies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384800) by [Peggy_Gaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peggy_Gaugh/pseuds/Peggy_Gaugh)
  * Translation into Español available: [El sendero de las luciérnagas.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551502) by [ElizaTenshi (Isa_no_Tenshi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isa_no_Tenshi/pseuds/ElizaTenshi)



> This fic exists because of episode 8x08, [this Tumblr post](http://www.museaway.com/post/99965651435/yellow-turtle-metatron-is-right-cas-is-in-love) (I'm still laughing), and the song _Fireflies_ by Ron Pope. It is _not_ S10 canon compliant, since it was written well before the season aired.
> 
>  _Thanks to_ [Jad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jad) for hours of brainstorming and her alpha skills; to [Vera](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse), darling long-time friend and brilliant writer, for her suggestions and final beta; and to [most_curiously_blue_eyes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/most_curiously_blue_eyes) and [silkspectred](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silkspectred) for holding my hand while I worked on the first draft. 
> 
> Written for the Dean/Cas Big Bang 2014. Art by [nonexistenz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nonexistenz%0A) | [art masterpost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2389706) | [PDF format](https://www.mediafire.com/?8aiyccw63q3ncla)

[ ](http://imgur.com/JOA2I0l)

>  
> 
> I can’t stop this feelin’ in my heart  
>  Gotta keep searchin’ for my baby.  
>  I can’t find my bluebird.  
>   
>  \- _Ramble On_ , Led Zeppelin
> 
>  

It’s the best night of sleep Dean’s had in a long time—years, maybe.

There’s no one a.m. wake-up for another injection, no handcuffs tethering him to a restless night on concrete, just eight hours of uninterrupted, restorative bliss. He hadn’t even slept this well when he lived in Cicero, under that thick comforter Lisa insisted on using through the height of summer.

The blanket over him now isn’t heavy, but it’s warm. The mattress is like sleeping on a damned cloud. The sheets are smooth, pillow firm under his head and...lavender scented? He sniffs and cracks open an eye, takes in the bedside table: a couple of muscle car magazines, a half-drunk glass of water, someone’s cell phone in a black case. The walls are sky blue, and the pillow under his head is white. Someone next to him is breathing. He can make out the slow rhythm and rubs his forehead.

The last thing he remembers is Sam escorting him to bed, saying goodnight through the bedroom door. Christ, did he get out? Go somewhere? The detox has been rough; even weeks later, he often feels disconnected from reality. Angry. Frustrated. Mad at Sammy for refusing to let Dean stay damned, but grateful as hell for everything he’s done to make sure Dean became human again. Mad at Cas for wasting the last of the grace that wasn’t even his in the first place, trying to heal Dean’s dead body, then harvest his own blood.

Dean hasn’t been out of the bunker in weeks, not since Cas cornered him, terrified and elated, eyes hazy and red-rimmed due to his waning grace, swearing Dean could give up the Mark, that they could turn him back. (”You are a _good_ man,” Cas insisted. “This isn’t you.”) Cas looked like a million beams of light exploding in all directions from his vessel; Dean’s eyes instinctively blackened against the glare. They wouldn’t risk using Sam. Cas’s blood was pure. He had been remade by God, so it would be through his blood that Dean would be saved.

 _Would_ , Cas said, not _could_ , with finality in his voice, as if he dared anyone to tell him it might be possible to fail.

Stupid sons of bitches: They should’ve killed him the first time Cas tried to conceal his flinch at seeing Dean’s true face, when they both watched his eyes roll over black. But they didn’t kill him. They refused. And now he’s apparently escaping without any knowledge of how or where he went, all because Sam and Cas couldn’t let Dean go. Saved or not, he could still hurt someone. He could _kill_ someone. He wears the memory of his demonic self like a second skin.

His head feels fine; at least he’s not hungover, but why can’t he remember anything? He probably headed straight for a bar. He doesn’t have any memory of going home with someone. Maybe the memory loss is just a side effect of the detox. Whatever happened, he’s got to slip out before she wakes up, avoid the inevitable awkward morning-after ritual where he’ll promise to call, then try to remember her name long enough to block her number in his phone (assuming he even got it in the first place).

He squints at the alarm clock—why won’t his eyes focus? It’s two minutes before 6:30. The person beside him shifts. Dean does a check of his own body: shit, totally naked, not even socks. A quick inventory of the floor turns up his jeans next to what’s probably a closet. Shirt, check. He sees it balled up at the base of the nightstand. Boots? Maybe they’re under the bed or downstairs. She wouldn’t be the first chick he banged with a thing about her carpets.

He gingerly lifts the blanket and sheet, slides his right leg out, lowers it to the floor. The air is cold, but he eases his hip to the edge and is an inch from escape when a solid arm snakes around his torso.

“Good morning, Dean,” a too-familiar voice says warmly, and yeah—that’s stubble rough against his shoulder, a strong leg nudging between his knees, and Castiel leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Cas?” Dean chokes out as Cas presses forward against his ass. From the warm shock of skin, Dean knows Cas doesn’t have a stitch of clothing on. Dean scrambles upright to hold him at arm’s length.

“What the hell are we doing in bed?” he blurts out.

“It’s morning,” Cas says simply.

“So?” Dean counters, too confused to worry about the hysterical rise in his voice.

“What time did you go to sleep last night?” Cas asks with a bemused expression and reaches out for Dean again.

“Uh,” Dean replies, shaking him off and holding the sheet tight against his crotch. He thinks back on what he is able to remember. Sammy didn’t tell him the time, just said goodnight and closed the bedroom door. “Midnight?”

Cas sighs and smooths the hair on Dean’s forearm. Dean’s eyes widen at the intimacy, but he’s too shocked to move.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Cas asks gently. Dean glances at the sheet where it pools in Cas’s lap and swallows.

“Uh,” he mutters. “Think I’m still in one.”

“Ah. You’re teasing me,” Cas says knowingly. He grins and palms Dean’s thigh through the sheet.

“Wake up, buddy, just wake up,” Dean pleads with himself under his breath.

He squeezes his eyes closed, counts to three, and opens them to find Cas still looking at him. Cas has assumed a searching, worried expression. Dean’s seen that look way too often lately, every time Cas hovers over him with a syringe, when he adjusts Dean’s restraints, his fingers trailing over Dean’s wrists in a silent apology. Cas’s hand still rests on his leg.

“Shit,” Dean mutters.

He can’t handle Cas’s guilt right now, not on top of whatever else is going on, blinking instead and dropping his eyes to the bed. He calculates the distance to his jeans. He’ll be able to think a lot clearer when he’s not naked in bed with a naked Cas as a distraction.

A yawn escapes. He claps a hand over his mouth to stifle it, and exhales against a band on his ring finger. He thrusts it away from his face, holds it out to study it. It’s gleaming polished silver, like an angel blade. He stares at it dumbfounded.

Cas raises a hand to Dean’s forehead. It’s a feather-light pressure on his skin. Dean flinches away from it, but it’s just a touch to check his temperature, not angel hocus pocus. Cas has a ring on his left hand as well, a simple black lacquer band.

“You ever see _The Hangover_?” Dean asks weakly.

“I can assure you there is not a tiger in the bathroom, if that helps,” Cas offers. He smirks and kisses Dean’s temple.

Christ. What happened last night? He and Cas obviously got mind-voodooed and, what, got hitched? Is that even legal in Kansas? And now they’re holed up in some froufrou hotel that cost god-knows-what. It’s pretty obvious from Cas’s flirtatious behavior (and lack of any clothes) that they messed around, and Cas is unequivocally A-okay with that development. Dean can’t remember anything physical, but he’s gotta break it to Cas somehow: this was a big freaking mistake. With a sigh, he puts both feet on the floor and stands. The sheet falls away from his legs, leaving him cold and exposed.

“Um,” he says and rubs his knuckles over his lips. He looks back at Cas over his shoulder. Dean’s changed in front of him before, but this is different. In a rare show of modesty, he covers himself with his hands. “I need coffee.”

“I’ll start the machine,” Cas says and takes his phone from the opposite nightstand. With Cas’s attention averted, Dean scrambles for his jeans. Are these even his? The material feels too thin but they fit. He awkwardly hops into them. Cas taps his phone’s screen a few times—when did Cas upgrade to an iPhone?—before Dean hears a click and grinding sound in the next room. He cocks an eyebrow.

“You were right,” Cas admits. “This is easier first thing in the morning, but I’m still brewing it the old-fashioned way for the guests.”

“The...guests?” Dean repeats haltingly.

Cas looks at him strangely. “One and two don’t check out until this morning.” He says it like it’s a reminder.

Dean suppresses a shiver as a sick feeling pools in his gut. This isn’t right. Guests would mean they live here, which means Cas actually _thinks_ they live here, which means...

“I need to get up,” Cas continues, throwing back the sheet. “It’s after six-thirty.”

Dean averts his gaze a second too late and gets a first-hand reminder that Cas uses a pretty attractive vessel. Dean has a split-second flashback to a naked Cas and half a damned beehive, and his cheeks are suddenly burning hot. He tries to think about baseball to counter his dick’s questionable reaction to Cas’s lily-white ass. _Not the time, buddy_ , he counsels. Maybe he’s still drunk.

Cas pads naked into the bathroom. Dean locates his shirt and yanks it on, poking at his stomach, which feels too-soft and bloated. Maybe he’s still under the influence of whatever-it-is too, because everything’s blurry, like he’s got gunk in his eyes. He wipes them, blinks, but it’s like a permanent cling film stuck to his eyeballs. He can make out his own hands fine when he holds them up in front of his face (he lowers that frigging ring immediately), but everything from about twelve inches away is somewhat out of focus.

Dean’s pulse picks up; he can hear it roaring in both ears. A few possibilities come to mind. This could all be a dream. Or it could be real, and Cas is still under the influence of whatever they got exposed to last night. Or maybe they’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed by witches, or he’s trapped in a djinn’s illusion. Hell, maybe he’s hallucinating, and this is just a side-effect from being infused with so much of Cas’s not-quite-human blood. After all, Crowley was a hot mess as a blood junkie.

Dreams can be ruled out. The floor is solid and cold, but it doesn’t shift when he bounces a little. The clock reads three minutes later than the last time he looked; he glances away and back, but the time stays the same. He repeats the clock test twice for accuracy, then checks his hands: ten fingers.

Alright, he’s not dreaming. Probably.

Cas emerges from the bathroom with just a towel around his hips, smiling as he slips a pair of glasses onto Dean’s nose. Dean scowls and pointedly does not look at Cas’s chest. He focuses on a spot just behind Cas’s head and is alarmed that he can suddenly see exact details like a wisp of spiderweb in the corner above the closet.

“There’s always laser surgery,” Cas says, like they’ve had this conversation before.

That makes Dean frown harder.

“Coffee’s probably ready,” Cas offers and steps away.

[ ](http://imgur.com/XT8Oehc)

He disappears back into the bathroom. Dean hears the water start, so he follows the smell of coffee until he locates the coffee machine. The thing’s space aged: a glass cylinder filled with coffee grounds, some type of computer screen that looks straight out of an Apple store, a silver platform with two white mugs (they do _not_ say His and His) steaming with a fresh brew.

Coffee’s good. Coffee’ll clear his head and allow him to think.

He takes one and sits roughly at the round table under a small window that looks out over some type of orchard. The trees, whatever they are, are planted in rows. Dean shudders at the scarecrow and drinks his coffee, which is pretty good, strong, delicious actually. A big step up from roadside diner. The kitchen is small but sexy for a kitchen: clean lines, white counter and simple cabinets, wide-plank wood floor. It opens up into a living room, with a staircase (okay, he’s up at least one floor) and a fireplace Dean can just see if he leans back.

He peers further out the window and sees his Baby, parked under a carport. His stomach plummets. He knows it’s her from the shape; he’s run his hands over her so many times, he could sculpt her blind. She’s protected by a silver cover that hugs her curves in the best way, custom by the looks of it, but her front right tire is flat.

Alright. If this isn’t a dream, and it’s not some form of brainwashing, then it’s gotta be a trickster or a djinn, possibly an angel. Dean just has to concentrate until he can figure out which one. If it’s a djinn, he can free himself with a well-placed bullet. If it’s a trickster, Dean will be ready with a stake. An angel? Fuck.

He gets to his feet, scouring the room for anything that’ll clue him into the parameters of this universe, but there aren’t any envelopes lying around or anything stuck to the refrigerator. On the mantle, he spots a photograph in a silver frame, next to a picture of Sam and a woman with two brats. The picture is of him and Cas. They’re in suits. Cas has a hand on Dean’s cheek and is kissing the side of his face. Dean’s smiling like a frigging idiot, a hand on Cas’s arm sporting the same ring he’s got on now.

“Dude, are you _gay now_?” he asks himself.

Behind him, Cas sighs heavily. “I thought you’d gotten over trying to label yourself.”

“Didn’t they teach you not to sneak up on people in Heaven?” Dean snaps.

“That would make it difficult to watch over people,” Cas says. He walks toward Dean slowly. He’s still wearing a towel, his face freshly shaved and pink from being scrubbed.

“Cas, buddy, I need you to think for a second,” Dean demands. “Does anything about this morning seem strange to you?”

“Apart from you turning down sex, no,” Cas huffs.

“So, you and me waking up in the same bed...that doesn’t raise any alarms?”

“Why should it?” Cas asks with a frown.

“That’s normal to you?”

“Dean, if this is a joke—”

“Answer the question,” Dean says pointedly.

Cas goes very still. He tilts his head, just barely, to the right. “What year do you think it is?” he asks slowly.

The question throws Dean. He’s about to spit something back when he pauses. With the glasses, he can see Cas clearly. He takes in his appearance: tanned skin with pronounced wrinkling at the corners of his eyes. Cas’s hair is a little longer than Dean is used to, curling gently at his neck. There are flecks of gray at his hairline. Dean’s never noticed that before. He recalls how bloated his stomach looked a couple minutes ago, too-rounded, too soft; how the jeans fit but didn’t feel like his. _No way_ , he thinks. Dean pushes past Cas toward the bathroom and flicks on the light. He grips the edge of the counter and goes cold.

The face staring back at him from the glass is unmistakably his. It has the same haircut, the same green eyes, but it’s not his face. A crease bisects his forehead; another is etched vertically beside his left eyebrow. His cheeks are fuller, flushed with healthy color; this isn’t a man who lives on burgers and pie. He touches his nose, his cheek, rubs a hand over two days of stubble.

“I have gray hair,” he observes out loud.

“Only a little at your temples,” Cas corrects from the doorway. He watches Dean through concerned eyes.

“I didn’t have one gray hair on my head last night,” Dean insists. The old man in the mirror mouths along with Dean’s words. “Where am I?”

“Vermont,” Cas answers through a sigh.

“Vermont,” Dean repeats. “Why am I in Vermont?”

“We live here.”

“What?” Dean asks, incredulous, burning his gaze into Cas through the mirror. “What in hell are you talking about?”

Cas takes a breath and answers matter-of-factly, “We’ve lived in Vermont for over ten years.”

The grayed, slightly wrinkled version of himself in the mirror shifts and blurs as Dean sways on his feet. There’s no way. He holds the counter like a lifeline, the hard edge against his palms grounding him. A lifetime of hunting has honed his instincts. He knows when to trust his gut. This feels real, but it can’t be. At the back of his mind, he knows it _can’t_ be.

“Tell me something only you would know,” he demands.

Cas’s arms hang neutrally at his sides. Dean watches him curl his hands into loose fists, his jaw tighten and relax as he forms an answer.

“Sometimes in dreams, you sit on a dock and fish,” he says, finally.

Dean starts, but Cas’s answer isn’t enough to completely assuage his suspicion. Cas has told him that dreams aren’t safe. Hell, if Cas could infiltrate Dean’s dreams, what’s to stop anyone else? And is the person standing in the doorway even Cas? Dean scowls and stares at the drain. Behind him, Cas heaves a sigh.

“There’s holy water in the vial on the top shelf in the living room, and the silver knife is with the rest of the cutlery,” he says plainly and offers his arm. “I can’t heal like I used to, so please cut cleanly.”

He vanishes from the doorway.

Dean stares at the altered version of his face for another few seconds, then goes to the kitchen, pulls out every drawer until he locates the knives and takes out the one with a silver blade. If this thing isn’t Cas, Dean’s sure as shit not letting it walk out of here alive. With Cas watching, Dean slides the blade over his own forearm as a precaution, watches the blood well up, inhales sharply at the sting. He repeats this on Cas’s arm, watches his eyes snap closed in pain, but Cas keeps still. He bleeds red and doesn’t heal himself.

“Are you satisfied?” Cas asks after Dean splashes him with holy water and stands back, biting the inside of his cheek. The water collects on the floor at Cas’s feet. Cas wraps a hand over the cut on his arm and holds it protectively against his bare chest.

“Well, you’re not a demon or a shapeshifter,” Dean grinds out. He loosens his grip on the knife but doesn’t set it down. “What’s the deal with the rings?”

Cas looks at him carefully and tilts his head. It reminds Dean of their first meeting in the barn, the way Cas’s expression has morphed to curiosity. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks.

“You two assholes detoxing me, you pissing away your chance to get your wings back,” Dean answers. “Sammy mother henning me—dude won’t let me off the couch.”

“Dean,” Cas says, stepping closer. He gently rests a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean can feel the heat of his palm through his t-shirt, echoing the mark Cas seared into him in Hell. “That was twelve years ago.”

“Bull,” Dean spits out and shakes off Cas’s hand. He drops his eyes to his own forearm; there’s no sign the Mark was ever present, only an ache that stretches bone deep, spidery fingers of it underneath layers of skin and muscle. It sparks an urgency that recedes when he lifts his eyes. He heaves a breath.

“We should sit down,” Cas suggests.

“I’m fine standing,” Dean snaps, taking another step backwards. Cas holds up his hands in submission and sits down by himself. Dean approaches him cautiously, like Cas is a wild animal that might bear his teeth, turn on him at any moment. “Start talking,” he orders over the knife.

Cas is quiet for a moment and worries the edge of his towel.

“After everything that happened,” he begins, lowering his chin so he’s speaking to the floor, “after you were... _you_ again, you needed time to adjust. I needed time to recover. We stayed at the bunker for a while, almost a year, but it was too familiar. There were too many memories. You weren’t improving.”

“So you locked me up someplace?” Dean guesses as he approaches the couch, so he can look Cas in the face.

“No,” Cas insists, lifting his head. His eyes are a shock of blue. “Sam didn’t want you in an institution, and I remembered something you told me.”

“What’s that?”

“When I returned from Purgatory,” Cas says, “you asked what I planned to do. You mentioned Vermont and made a joke about me running a bed and breakfast. I’ve observed that humans often make suggestions based on their own desires, so I proposed a vacation here. We ended up staying.”

Dean scoffs. “You expect me to believe that you and me moved to Vermont, just like that?”

Cas shakes his head. “It was never supposed to be permanent,” he says. “We sold a few insignificant items from the bunker for money. Sam was with us for a few months, until he met Susan. They live an hour away.”

“Oh,” Dean says.

Cas sighs and leans back, lets his hands fall limp on either side of his thighs. The towel parts just above his knees. He lolls his head backwards and shuts his eyes.

“We rented a small house in town for a few years,” he murmurs, “but this place came on the market, so we drove out to see it on a whim.”

Dean exhales and perches tentatively on the edge of the couch. Without opening his eyes, Cas reaches an arm toward him and takes a deep breath. Dean feels Cas’s fingers press into his leg momentarily, and Dean finds he can’t speak. He clenches his teeth and tries not to move, but his whole body goes rigid in response to Cas’s touch. Cas must sense his discomfort, because he removes his hand and folds both together on his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Cas says, staring at his fingers. “I know this is unfamiliar to you right now. This part is always difficult.”

“What do you mean ‘always’? This has happened before?”

Cas nods. “You have nightmares occasionally, though it’s been almost a year since the last time you lost your sense of time, three since you regressed to this degree.”

“I don’t believe it,” Dean says and keeps his eyes on Cas to avoid looking at the fireplace. He feels the snapshot eyes boring into him anyway and stabs a finger toward the picture. “That? It ain’t real.”

Cas’s eyes dart to the mantle, then skitter to his lap. He stands up and secures the towel around his waist, rubbing a palm over his collarbone.

“I have to serve breakfast,” he says finally. His voice is quiet and rings with defeat. “Stay here until the guests check out. Then we can talk more.”

“Fine,” Dean agrees.

Cas retreats to the bedroom. Dean can hear him opening drawers and pulling out clothes, hears the slide of skin against fabric. He imagines the familiar trench coat and suit. When Cas reappears in khakis and a plain blue shirt, Dean frowns at the reminder of Cas’s fall.

“I’ll be back soon,” Cas promises and grasps Dean’s arms gently. He pauses like he’s considering his next move, then kisses Dean firmly, thoroughly, hovers at his mouth. Dean’s breath catches. Cas parts his lips, pressing in closer. He shaved just now, so his skin is smoother than it was this morning, but it’s still _Cas_. Cas is kissing him. Dean doesn’t move, and he doesn’t kiss back. A handful of seconds later, Cas exhales in defeat, strokes the side of Dean’s face once.

“It was worth a try,” he says. His hand is large and warm, alien, and then at his side once more. He heads down the staircase, the steps creaking under his weight. Dean raises a hand to his lips. His heart is pounding.

He stays where he is until Cas reaches the first floor and walks away from the base of the stairs. Dean moves closer, leans into the stairwell. He listens for several minutes, makes out the sound of a coffee grinder, of mugs being placed on a counter. There is the satisfying crack of eggshells, then Cas whisking something against the low cadence of his voice. Dean can’t make out any words, but Cas is talking to someone.

Focus. He’s got to focus.

If this is a djinn, he can force his way out of the illusion, force himself to wake up—he doesn’t want to think about what it means that his dick brain decided he should be married to Cas in the first place—but if he runs himself through with a knife and it turns out this place is legit, he’s going to be pissed. Maybe he can _think_ his way back into his reality, bend the space around him just enough to be able to tell. With one hand on the wall to steady himself, he takes a deep breath and fists the silver knife.

He makes a second cut on his forearm, about two inches long, just deep enough that it wells up red. He concentrates on that line of pain, mentally tracing its edges, but nothing happens. His eyes fall closed. He imagines himself strung up in a warehouse somewhere, wrists bound and chafed, but nothing happens. He presses harder with the knife into the cut, sucking in a breath through his teeth, and waits.

Nothing.

He positions the blade over his chest, tip pressing just below his sternum, and begins to push. The pain is sharp and absolute.

“Come on, you bastard,” he grates out, but Cas doesn’t come to stop him, doesn’t tell him to put the knife down. The djinn doesn’t manifest. The blood is a hot and slick truth on his chest.

When he opens his eyes, he’s still in the living room, gripping the knife, blood visible through his t-shirt and dripping from his forearm. He faces the happy visage of himself grinning stupidly from the mantle and starts to sweat. The new cuts begin to throb.

“Shit,” he swears and goes to wash them in the sink, then digs up a couple bandages and tube of antiseptic.

[ ](http://imgur.com/u0ZxpZ0)

So this place isn’t in his head, he considers as he applies pressure to his chest to slow the bleeding. Djinns are a pain in the ass, but they’re a lot easier to handle than trickster gods and frigging angels. Maybe Zachariah was brought back and this is his idea of a joke. Last time, Zach had also been the one to push him forward and pull him back out. But Cas isn’t acting like the Cas did in that ruined future universe, hasn’t picked up that Dean seems out of place. And there’s not a second version of himself walking around like a freaky carnival mirror.

Cas had lost his grace then, and it was only five years into the future. How long did he say they’ve been living here, over a decade? If this place is real, at the rate the stolen grace was burning through Cas’s vessel, there’s no way he’s got any left. Dean thinks of Castiel as he was when Dean emerged from his demon fog: strung out and unsteady, like a dying star. There’s no way Cas recovered from that on his own; Cas told him it wasn’t possible. The angels must have intervened.

Dean paws through a dresser for a shirt and pulls on a loose, gray cotton tee. He pushes the drawer closed with his knee and begins to pace the bedroom. The bed’s unmade, sheets balled up at the base; Cas’s pillow is on the floor. It must’ve fallen off the bed when Cas got up this morning. Dean picks it up and throws it in place, tugs the sheets until they’re smooth, folds the blanket, and thinks.

This is right up Gabriel’s alley. Dean doesn’t know for certain that Gabriel is really dead. He’s seen Cas die plenty of times before; you never can tell with angels. If Gabriel is the one behind this, Dean is going to stake him where the sun don’t shine, just for the heck of it. Every time angels mess with his life, it’s through emotional manipulation, but this is a whole new level of fucked up. In the past they separated him and—

“Sammy,” Dean exclaims, snatching the phone that must be his by default. He sits on the edge of the bed and switches it on.

The home screen is an animated picture of Cas with two kids, a boy and a girl, scaling him as he sits on the couch. He’s laughing; it’s a good look on him. The girl is maybe eight, with shoulder-length hair and Sam’s eyes. The boy is younger with dark hair. Dean scowls at the picture (video? what is this, Harry Potter?) and looks for anything that resembles a call button. Nothing. On a whim, he says, “Call Sam” and a smiling shot of Sam holding a baby fills the center of the screen. It reads “Calling Sam Winchester.”

“Hey, Dean,” Sam says after two rings.

“Hey,” Dean says, relieved at the sound of Sam’s voice.

“Cas just called me,” Sam says. “You okay?”

“There’s something going on here, Sammy,” Dean confides, dropping his voice so it doesn’t carry. Who knows how good Cas’s hearing is nowadays?

“Listen,” Sam says. “The kids are in school, so I’m heading up your way. I should be there in about thirty-five minutes. We’ll talk then.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, exhales hard. “Yeah, okay.”

“Want me to bring you anything for breakfast?”

“Uh, I think Cas is cooking...something.”

Sam chuckles, sonorous and happy. It’s amazing and disconcerting to hear that emotion in Sam’s voice, something Dean has wished for him for so long. He’d sell his soul again if it meant that Sam would be happy like that forever.

“He usually is,” Sam finishes. “See you soon.”

They hang up after Dean’s mumbled goodbye, leaving Dean again trapped within unfamiliar walls. Cas said he should stay inside, so Dean fishes in the closet for a jacket and finds a plaid one with a dark collar. He tugs it on but doesn’t zip it, then descends the staircase with as much stealth as creaky stairs allow. At the base of the steps is another kitchen, larger than the one upstairs, with a commercial-grade oven and copper apron sink. He remembers the name from childhood, a style his mom always said she liked.

“One day, we’ll renovate this whole place,” she’d say with a hand on Dean’s shoulder as she supervised his three-year-old’s attempt at dish washing.

He knows instantly, instinctively, that his mom would approve of this kitchen: the large window over the sink that looks out on a tidy vegetable garden, the central island with two stools on the end. He wonders if he sits there a lot, maybe brings his coffee downstairs and does something domestic like read a newspaper. He shakes off the thought and scans for a way out.

There’s a hallway that appears to lead further within the house, so he opts for the door to the left of the counter. It opens out onto a cramped porch with rocking chairs but a view of the sky framed by trees. They’re leafy green, full and rustling in the breeze. He runs a hand over the spindles of one chair, watches it rock back and forth, back and forth, then still. The house’s clapboard siding is a sun-bleached red with white shutters. They’ve been recently touched up. He jumps off the steps ( _note to self:_ no jumping, his knee freakin’ hurts) and limps across the patchy lawn, past the kitchen garden, to the carport. It’s actually a walk-through garage, he amends as he gets close, with the doors lifted and secured on either end.

“Baby, how long’s it been?” he murmurs and rests a hand on her hood. The cover is high quality vinyl, thick and waterproof, the kind meant for long-term storage. He sighs and lifts a corner to peer underneath. Paint’s fine. At least she’s not on blocks. He scans the garage for a pump and finds one hanging conveniently on a well-organized pegboard.

“Nice,” he compliments.

He’s on his back, running his hands soothingly over rust spots on her underside, when he hears the crunch of gravel that signals a car pulling up. An engine shuts off and footsteps replace the roll of tires, ending where his legs stick out from the Impala.

“Haven’t seen you out here in a while,” Sam says. He sounds genuinely surprised, but he doesn’t say anything else while Dean scoots out from under the car, stands and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“Sammy,” he breathes, part relief, part disbelief, because Sam’s no kid anymore. He’s wearing dark-washed jeans and leather shoes with a blazer. He’s still got that awful, floppy hair, but there are laugh lines on his face, which is a little wider and a little softer than Dean’s used to. He’s smiling and looks so damned normal that Dean has to speak around a lump in his throat.

“Hey.” He has no idea what to say. “How was the drive?”

“Quick,” Sam says, rocking forward on his toes. “Not much traffic. Did you eat yet?”

“Just coffee,” Dean answers.

“I could use a cup,” Sam says and motions to the house. Dean grudgingly accompanies him back inside. He watches, fascinated, as Sam opens the cupboard, takes out two mugs, then opens a drawer for a spoon. He knows the kitchen well, moves with knowledge rather than intuition. He pours them both a mug, adds cream and sugar to Dean’s, nothing to his own. Dean cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Susie’s got me watching my sugar intake,” Sam replies and pats his stomach.

“Dude,” Dean says in reply.

“So,” Sam says, settling into one of the stools with his mediocre coffee. Dean falls onto the other. They’re tall, but Sam dominates his because of his height, legs barely folded under the counter. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“That’s what Cas asked me earlier,” Dean says, frowning into his coffee. He dips his face into it and inhales greedily, drinks despite it being too hot. He hisses at the sting. “He said this happened before,” he adds.

Sam has the sense to blow on his coffee before he drinks. He nods slowly, pressing his lips into a line as he swallows, and stares at his hands. They dwarf the mug. Dean notes the gold wedding band and sniffs.

“A few times,” Sam says. “Especially at first.”

“Nothing feels right,” Dean confides. He rakes his hands through his hair, lets them hold up the weight of his head. “How do I know this is even real?”

Sam shrugs. He lifts his mug closer to his mouth and stares at the twist of steam.

“You don’t,” he says and takes another sip.

“What’s Poughkeepsie mean?”

“Drop everything and run,” Sam recites. “I could list them all: Five-O. First motel in the phone book. But Dean, if this is all in your head—or inspired by something from your head—then I’m really _you_ , so of course I’d know all of that.”

Dean’s frustration boils to rage that surges in his gut, but he forces it down.

“So you’re married?” he asks instead and grits his teeth.

“Nine years,” Sam says with a chuckle. “Can you believe it?”

“I’m having a hard time believing any of this.”

“I know,” Sam says consolingly.

“So what do you do?” Dean asks.

“I raise my kids,” Sam answers with a smile and leans back, letting his right hand fall to his lap.

“You’re Mr. Mom?”

“I’m a parent, Dean. That’s what you do when you’re a parent, take care of your kids.”

“So, your wife?”

“Susan,” Sam supplies. “She’s an RN, works the day shift in a nursing home. I watch the kids, write in my spare time.”

“You’re a writer? Of what, the continuing adventures of _Supernatural_?”

“Smart ass,” Sam says, swatting his arm. “No, I run a blog for people who have dealt with the paranormal, especially people who are having a hard time coping.”

“You actually get paid to do that?” Dean asks. He lifts both eyebrows.

“People pay to sleep in your guest room,” Sam reminds him. “And for Cas’s cooking.”

Dean takes an appreciative sniff. Whatever’s in the oven smells like oranges and cinnamon. Imaginary or not, he’s hungry, and he’s claiming the first piece.

“Can’t believe Cas can cook something other than taquitos,” Dean says, chewing the inside of his lip.

“He still can’t rival you for burgers,” Sam says consolingly, “though the kids like his grilled cheese.”

“Wow, kids,” Dean repeats with shades of disbelief. “So you’ve got two?”

“John and Mary,” Sam says and immediately holds up his hands. “I know, but Susie really liked the idea, and it feels nice to honor them somehow.”

“I found a picture of them on my phone,” Dean says and stirs his coffee with a fingertip, sucks it clean. “She looks like you.”

“She does,” Sam agrees. “It’s her eyes. Tell you what, we’ll all come up next weekend, if you feel up to it.”

“I feel fine,” Dean says automatically. “Just...out of time.”

“Cas is pretty worried. You didn’t forget so many years, last time.”

“That’s another thing,” Dean says, casting a quick glance down the hallway. It’s clear. “Me and _Cas_?”

Sam bites back a laugh. “Is it really that surprising?”

“I like women,” Dean says emphatically, miming a pair of breasts.

“You _also_ like women,” Sam says thoughtfully. “Dean, not everyone’s a zero on the Kinsey scale.”

“I’ve never wanted to see a dick except my own.”

“Two words: _Dr. Sexy_.”

“Fuck you,” Dean spits out.

Sam is an asshole and laughs.

“It was the boots,” Dean defends. “They had the power to transcend sexuality.”

“And this is _Cas_ ,” Sam says. “Whatever your sexuality is, he transcended it a long time ago.”

“Have you stopped crying during sex yet?”

“I know you don’t believe me right now, but you love him.”

“So he’s human?” Dean changes the subject. Sam nods slowly.

“It was his choice,” he says.

“That son of a bitch,” Dean mutters.

“It’s what he wanted.”

“Bull.”

“You know he was prepared to die when he thought you were dead?”

Dean doesn’t answer, so Sam continues.

“I didn’t really understand what it was between the two of you until all that happened.” Sam takes a sip of coffee and pushes the hair back from his face. “He’s happy as a human, okay? Trust me for once, jerk.”

“Bitch,” Dean says.

For an instant, everything is right. Dean takes a deep breath and relaxes minutely, but the moment is broken when the door at the end of the hallway opens, and Cas walks toward them carrying a coffee carafe. Dean pulls up into his shoulders and drops his eyes to the counter.

“Need to refill,” Cas explains. Dean spots the bandage on his arm, jutting out from beneath a rolled-up sleeve. He looks away from it.

“Morning, Cas,” Sam offers cheerfully.

“How are you, Sam?” Cas replies.

“I’m good,” Sam says. “You?”

“Relieved we don’t have any check-ins until Friday,” Cas confides as he sets the coffee machine to brew, then grinds a fresh measure of beans.

“What do we do all week,” Dean asks, “sit around and make googly-eyes at each other?”

“Are you hungry?” Cas asks instead of acknowledging Dean’s sarcasm. He switches on the oven light.

“Starved,” Dean answers.

“I made your favorite,” Cas says and takes out a pair of oven mitts. “To be fair,” he amends, “I had planned on making this today, but it’s still your favorite.”

He stares at Dean for a second too long, hopefully, before turning back to the oven. Sam gives Dean an annoyed look that means he’s supposed to respond.

“Sure it’ll be great,” Dean mumbles, trying to placate him. “Smells awesome.”

“Thank you,” Cas says, opening the oven to reveal a long glass dish filled with...bread? Dude. Dean’s a man. He requires a hearty breakfast, bacon and sausage. His mouth waters traitorously.

“Baked french toast,” Sam says, leaning in to whisper. “Maple bacon.”

“French toast?” Dean mourns under his breath. Cas places the dish on a large black trivet and gets out a knife. Dean half expects him to angel-ninja the bread, but he slices it methodically into rows.

“I should let it cool, but I know you two won’t mind if it falls apart.” He takes down three plates and serves them each a square, then covers the dish in foil. “They opted for cereal this morning, so there will be leftovers for tomorrow. There are eggs, too.”

Cas must be talking about the guests. He takes his own plate and holds it, leaning a hip against the sink to eat. Behind him, the coffee drips into the pot with a satisfying hiss and gurgle.

“Their loss,” Sam says before he digs in.

Dean follows suit, blowing on the first forkful, chewing slowly and skeptically. It’s—oh, man, it’s perfect: sweet, salty, buttery, with a crunch of bacon.

“Damn,” he says reverently. He can’t think of the right compliment, but Cas appears satisfied with his reaction, quietly eating his own portion with a smile.

Maybe this being-married-to-Cas thing isn’t the end of the world, not if he can cook like this. Dean can hang out in this universe for a while. But he thinks about Cas kissing him not quite an hour ago and his contentment dims. He can’t let himself get used to stuff like that. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair, cramming in another mouthful to avoid being the one to break the awkward silence that has descended on the kitchen.

“Bathroom renovations go okay?” Sam asks Cas, who nods several times and wipes his mouth on a paper towel.

“We had one issue with the structure under room three. It was necessary to reinforce the floor to carry the weight of the tub, but it only set us back two weeks.”

“Glad you got to open for the season.”

“It’s slow,” Cas admits. “Of course, Dean prefers it that way.”

“I don’t like a lot of people in my business,” Dean says defensively, even though he’s not even sure if that’s the reason that future domestic!Dean likes the slow mid-week.

“If it were up to you, you’d live in your car.” Sam punctuates the sentence with a fork jab in Dean’s direction.

“From the looks of it, I haven’t driven her in a while.”

“You had other priorities,” Sam says.

“What, fucking Heaven’s reject?” Dean suggests. Sam shoots him a sharp, narrow look that has Dean snapping his mouth shut. He crushes a piece of bread with the tines of his fork.

Cas busies himself pouring coffee into the carafe. “Excuse me,” he says and walks it back down the hallway, out of hearing range.

“Don’t be a dick,” Sam says once Cas is gone. “This is hard on him.”

“This is a lot to take in, okay?” Dean gripes. “A few weeks ago, we’re taking down Metatron, fighting the big bad. Today I wake up to find I’m married to freaking _Cas_ and run a bed and breakfast, while my Baby’s out there rusting in a dirty garage.”

“The garage isn’t dirty.”

“Rusting, Sammy. She’s _rusting_.”

“Did you ever consider that your obsession with that car was just a substitute for real intimacy?”

“No,” Dean says stubbornly.

“And that maybe you don’t spend every waking hour with it because you’re, I don’t know, in love with someone?”

Dean scoffs. “With _Cas_ , you mean.”

“Yes, with Cas,” Sam says firmly. “Don’t pull that ‘I’ve never thought about it’ act with me. We both know that’s not true. Even the Colt couldn’t have cut the tension between the two of you. I’m just glad you finally did something about it.”

Sam draws in a long, deep breath and exhales through his nose. Dean picks at a stubborn nub of cotton on his sleeve.

“Sorry,” Sam continues after a minute. “I know this sucks for you. Look, just try to get back into your routine, okay? And please be civil with him until your memories come back.”

“What if they don’t?”

“They always have,” Sam assures him.

“But what if they _don’t_?” Dean stresses. Sam shrugs half-heartedly.

“I don’t know. Worse comes to worse, I guess you get a divorce. Or maybe you’ll figure out why you liked the guy in the first place.”

Dean gives a short, mirthless laugh and rubs a hand over his face, bites down hard on his index finger.

“I really own a freakin’ B&B?” he mutters.

Sam shakes his head and swats Dean’s shoulder affectionately.

+

Cas doesn’t come back around until the guests have checked out and left the property. Then, he pops in to say he’s going to strip the beds and start a load of laundry.

“Need any help?” Sam offers, elbowing Dean in the ribs. They’re crashed out on the couch upstairs watching a documentary on bullfrogs because Sam is apparently still a huge nerd even though he’s in his forties. Dean’s never going to admit he finds it fascinating.

“Yeah, need any help?” he parrots.

Cas gives an aborted head shake, then appears to change his mind.

“Thank you,” he says. “It’s easier to carry everything with two people.”

Sam gives Dean a wide-eyed _go_ face, so Dean peels himself off the couch (a shame, it’s comfortable, and how awesome that he owns a leather couch?) and falls into step with Cas, who leads the way downstairs, through the kitchen, into the shared part of the house.

It doesn’t look the way Dean expected, stuffy or full of dust-collecting knick-knacks no one cares about. It’s sparse, kinda masculine with rough-hewn wood beams overhead, another wide-plank floor, a round wood table just inside the entrance. The table is strewn with fitness magazines, hunting guides, classic car magazines and books. He lingers over the selection for a minute. Cas watches him patiently.

Where the welcome mat should be, there’s a familiar pattern. He gives Cas an eyebrow.

“Devil’s trap?” he asks.

“Custom wood inlay,” Cas confirms. “It’s an inside joke, but it came in handy once. There’s actually a removable piece to free the demon, so we don’t have to damage the floor.”

“Huh,” Dean says. “What’s the name of this place, anyway?”

“Hotel California,” Cas replies. There’s a warmth in his voice that makes Dean feel guilty.

“Wow. That’s…” Dean searches for the right word but comes up short. “Different,” he settles on.

“That was the idea,” Cas tells him, pointing to the first door on the left. “It’s just rooms one and two today.”

Cas unlocks the door with an old-fashioned metal key, none of that plastic card bullshit (assuming they still exist) and pushes the door inward. Dean expects a floral nightmare, maybe a faded yard sale painting over a creaky brass bed frame. What he sees is retro, like those crappy motel rooms he and Sam put up with for so many years, except this is high-end.

The light fixture over the bed is a monstrous white thing, like a pineapple blown open, illuminated and attention grabbing. The headboard is four dark-stained wood planks affixed horizontally to the wall, which is painted a deep midnight blue. The wall opposite the bed is covered floor-to-ceiling with license plates from all over the country. Dean pinpoints three that he’s used on the Impala. Cas begins stripping the bed of its sheets, pillowcases, comforter, rolling them into a ball that he sets outside the door. He gathers the towels.

“Kevin will clean in here later,” he says, “but I like to take care of the laundry immediately.”

“Kevin?” Dean says hopefully, but Cas shakes his head.

“It’s just a coincidence,” he says.

Room two is similar but black and white, with a huge photo mural of the Impala that takes up the entire wall behind the bed.

“You decorated this room,” Cas supplies, nodding to the pair of yellow lamps on black night stands, the only pop of color in the room. “I didn’t think they’d fit,” he admits.

Dean is reluctant to admit he feels a little smug. After all, this is his work. Technically.

“How long did this take?” he asks.

“A few months,” Cas says. There’s a fondness in his voice. “We did most of the work ourselves. We had to strip a lot of wallpaper.”

“Good thing Sam’s so tall,” Dean says.

“His height was an advantage,” Cas agrees and pulls the covers from the bed while Dean studies the windowsill beneath the bay window. It’s chrome.

“Is this...a bumper?” he asks, smoothing a hand over it.

Cas smiles and comes to stand at his shoulder. “It took some engineering.”

“No shit,” Dean murmurs. “We’re pretty good decorators.”

“We’ve been featured in magazines,” Cas confides.

“Here, let me carry those,” Dean says, feeling like a jerk for standing around while Cas works. He points to the bedroll.

“Get the one in the hallway?” Cas asks, scooping up the pile. “And pull the door closed behind you. It sticks.”

Dean does, trailing after Cas who walks back through the main room to the kitchen. There’s a laundry closet at the far end, past the pantry. Cas opens the top of the machine and feeds the sheets in first.

“This will take four loads,” he explains as he places an orange detergent tablet in a tray and slides it in, presses a button that glows blue.”That’s why I like to get a head start.”

“You could skip washing the comforter,” Dean suggests, but Cas gives him a knowing look.

“You would be surprised what people do on them,” he says in classic Serious Cas Tone.

“Oh,” Dean says. He’s had a good time on top of a hotel bed or ten himself, but decides to keep that information confidential. Something tells him Cas is the jealous type. The washing machine begins to spin and spray water on the sheets.

“Is Sam staying for lunch?” Cas asks.

“I’ll ask him,” Dean says. He yells up the staircase. “Hey, Sammy. You staying for lunch?”

Sam’s heavy footsteps echo down the stairs. He shoots Dean a glare that Dean’s pretty sure means Sam thinks he’s a heathen for yelling indoors. Dean opens both eyes wider in challenge, awaiting his answer.

“Sure,” Sam agrees, glancing sideways at Cas, who nods his consent. “The bus won’t drop the kids off for a couple hours.”

+

Cas makes sandwiches. They sit on the porch to eat them, swatting away flies and the occasional curious bee that ventures over from the garden. Dean will never see a bee and not think of Cas, of how broken and fragile he was after he absorbed Sam’s memories of the pit, of Lucifer. He rubs the back of his neck and focuses on his surroundings.

Cas’s eyes are trained on the sky. It’s almost clear blue, with just a smear of clouds above the tree line. The hardness is gone from Cas’s face, even the lines around his mouth and eyes from the pain he carried: Sam’s pain, Dean’s pain, his own stemming from what he did to Heaven. Cas looks peaceful. He looks at peace—with himself, with humanity, maybe even with God.

It’s strange to eat so leisurely, to see Sam stretched out, chewing slowly, not shoveling last night’s takeout into his mouth because it’s almost check-out time. Or because the diner just discovered their credit card is no good (second time in a week). Or because they’re planning to dine and ditch since the last activated card Dean had in his wallet got cut up thirteen miles down the road at a crappy Shell station without a working bathroom.

An airplane crosses overhead; Dean clears his throat and takes his first bite. It’s ham and swiss cheese, with lettuce and tomato on toasted rye bread. He allows himself the small luxury of chewing his food instead of housing it. It feels a little indulgent, like a sin on Sunday.

“So, do we still gank the occasional demon?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” Cas answers.

“We consult more than we’re in the field,” Sam adds. “Especially you. And it’s not so much demons these days as angry spirits, occasional vamp. Sometimes something a little more sinister. There was a siren last year outside of Omaha, so we took a vacation.”

“Was it awesome?” Dean guesses.

“Awful,” Sam says and grins. “I was sore for a week from the way that thing threw me around. I’m not used to that anymore.”

“Wuss,” Dean scolds through a full mouth. “Bet that was a fun car ride back.”

“I was never so glad to get out of that thing,” Sam confides.

“You come along for that one?” Dean asks, leaning over Sam to speak to Cas, who politely wipes his mouth before answering. Dean has mustard on his face and doesn’t care.

“Yes,” Cas says, “though I’m not as helpful without my powers.”

“You were plenty helpful,” Sam assures him. “You just can’t fly anymore. But hey, at least you can’t get zapped if we ever have to use a sigil.”

“True,” Cas agrees. He looks to the sky wistfully. Sam knocks him on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion, which makes Dean scowl. It’s off putting to see them acting so familiar. Sam and Cas have always gotten along fine, but Cas was always closer with Dean. Dean doesn’t care, but it’s just...weird.

“We’re glad you’re here,” Sam is saying to Cas in a soothing tone, which makes Dean bite his lip to keep from appending something tasteless, like _as long as you’ve got pants on_.

“Thank you,” Cas says.

They fall into silence again, set their plates on the deck railing, and soak up the sun. They’ve never done this, the three of them, just relax in each other’s company because they _can_. Someone was always recovering from injuries, or they were in hiding, or Cas was adjusting to life as a human, or they were simply killing downtime until the next hunt.

But this, right now? Sitting together on rocking chairs, waiting for nothing in particular, because nothing’s happening? This is a _choice_. Dean’s not sure how he feels about it. He shifts in his chair and frowns. He folds his hands on his stomach and slouches until his head rests comfortably on the honey-stained wood, pushes gently with his right foot to ease the chair into motion. He shuts his eyes. The breeze slides over his face and ruffles his hair.

“Man,” he says, inhaling. The air is fresh and restorative, invigorating. “Bobby woulda loved this.”

“I’m sure he approves,” Cas says.

“D’you hear from him?” Dean asks, opening one eye.

“I lost my signal,” Cas answers—it’s not melancholy, just a statement, but Dean feels thoughtless for asking.

“Bet my mom would love the kitchen sink,” he offers.

Cas’s mouth twitches. “That’s what you said when we picked it out.”

“Huh,” Dean says.

“I have an idea,” Sam interjects. “Why don’t we look through photos, see if we can jog your memory?”

“Can’t hurt,” Dean agrees, then pauses. “Right?”

“It helped last time,” Sam says with a shrug.

“You two go in,” Cas says. “I’ll clean up and meet you upstairs.”

“Dean will help you with the dishes,” Sam says, slapping his thighs before getting up. He pushes the hair back from his face. Dean is too warm and sun-happy to protest being assigned chores. “I have to call Susie. Where are the albums?”

“On the bookshelf next to the TV,” Cas answers. “We’ll be right up.”

“See you in five,” Sam says and goes inside.

 _Subtle_ , Dean thinks, but Sam obviously believes they need time alone. It’s not that Cas is making him uncomfortable, but he doesn’t...he just can’t think about that right now, about _them_ , about the ring on his hand he’s trying not to look at. Cas doesn’t immediately stand up, so neither does he. He continues to rock himself with one foot, then locks his leg muscles, stilling the chair mid-sway backward.

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“If this—if you sensed something was off about me, you’d tell me, right?”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas says.

Dean nods slowly, relaxes his leg. The chair creaks forward and comes to a rest.

“So. Twelve years into the future,” Dean says with a shake of his head. He gathers the plates, reaches across Cas to snatch his from the railing. Cas looks down. “There’d better have been some major technological advances in dishwashing.”

“The sponge is new,” Cas offers.

“You’re gonna make me _hand wash_ the dishes?” Dean asks.

“There are only three plates, a cutting board, and a knife,” Cas points out.

Dean nods his defeat and leans against the railing. “Sorry for freaking out on you this morning,” he says. It slips out. He’s not sure why he said it.

Cas takes a moment to reply, tilting his head to the right in thought, the way he often does. “I’ve been trying to put myself into your shoes,” he says. “Not literally, of course.”

“Course.”

“I understand your reaction. I don’t blame you for it.”

“It’s just, where I’m from, you and me—we aren’t...”

He doesn’t finish, but Cas nods to the distant treeline. Dean feels a tug of panic.

“You’d have the same reaction if things were reversed,” he hurries to add. He forces a smile, tries to sound light, just friendly banter. “Can you imagine if I’d laid one on you after you refused to kill me in front of your angel pals?”

Dean waits for Cas to dip his chin in resignation, maybe even laugh at the idea, only he doesn’t. He looks at Dean sadly, longingly, for several seconds and doesn’t blink. Cas’s eyes are so, _so_ blue, as blue as they were when Cas lowered the knife and said, “I can’t.” Dean thinks of them sitting across from one another in the bunker afterwards, the way Cas’s face softened when Dean said, “you just gave up an entire army for one guy.”

Not Sam and Dean, not humanity, just _him_. Dean had understood the implication of his own words, but he didn’t think Cas had. Dude was still an angel, even if he was running on stolen batteries. It wasn’t fair to judge his actions by human standards. He probably would’ve done the same for Sam.

Cas sighs, and the sound of it is overlain by the memory of Balthazar’s voice:

_The one in the dirty trench coat who’s in love with you?_

But people harassed Dean like that all the time: Sam, Bobby, Meg, even Crowley. They all made jokes about his angel boyfriend. Hell, sometimes Dean even joked about the uncharted thing between them, but he never let it go beyond that, never put words to it. People said the same kind of shit about him and Sam over the years, because people are idiots. It didn’t _mean_ anything; it was better that it didn’t mean anything.

He rubs at goosebumps despite the sun.

“We—we should go inside,” he mutters, unable to look at Cas right then. He turns away sharply and drops a plate. It doesn’t break, just rolls to the edge of the deck and spins to a rest. The sound is dizzying.

Cas stoops to pick it up but doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes again. They wash the dishes in silence, with lemon-ginger scented soap. Cas dries each plate on a striped dish towel and places them in the cabinet. Together, they climb the stairs.

Sam’s got photo albums spread over the coffee table.

“Cas and I made these the last time,” he says, motioning to the books of various sizes and colors. “Thought we could start earlier, see if we can figure out exactly where your memories stop, then go forward from there. Hopefully jog something.” He turns the pages in an album that has a brown cover, purses his mouth, then looms over another selection.

“Okay,” Dean agrees and flops down onto the couch next to him. Cas pulls up a chair and sits on the other side of the table. He’s back to a neutral expression, but he hasn’t spoken since they were outside and doesn’t look up. Dean feels like he should apologize but isn’t sure exactly what for.

He didn’t _know_. Cas never said anything about feelings. He’d always been a weird guy, getting all up in Dean’s personal space, staring way longer than a normal person would; and there was that _thing_ he did, showing up when Dean was asleep. He didn’t pull that shit with Sam. But Cas wasn’t human. Dean always marked it down to that, never let himself read more into it. Cas was an _angel_ , and there wasn’t a damned thing in his dad’s journal about recognizing when an angel fell for you—hell, there wasn’t anything about angels.

Couldn’t anyone have tipped him off? That’s probably what they all thought they were doing, informing him through provocation rather than telling him outright, so he’d figure things out on his own. And if they had told him directly, would he have believed them? If Bobby had sat him down, Dean probably would’ve nursed his ambivalence with a bottle. He would’ve cursed at Sammy. Balthazar and Gabriel were asshole angels—what did they know?—and Meg was a demon. He wouldn’t have believed her either.

If it’d been Cas to say something...Dean doesn’t even want to think about what his reaction would be. If he hadn’t woken up this morning, felt Cas’s arms around him, he might not believe Cas, even now.

“Dean?” Sam is saying. Dean blinks and drops his eyes to Sam’s hands, which frame a photograph of Dean flipping off the camera.

“Nice,” he compliments. Cas leans forward slightly and peers at the photograph upside down.

“Do you remember this?” Sam asks.

It was the first day Sam let Dean out of the devil’s trap, satisfied his soul was no longer corrupted. Cas was asleep somewhere, recovering. He slept a lot that first week. Dean was nursing what felt like one mother of a hangover, but Sam refused to let him sulk alone in his bedroom. He dragged Dean out into the main room for breakfast, only there wasn’t any bacon, so Dean flipped him off. Sam gleefully snapped the picture with his phone and was smug as hell about it afterward.

“Yeah,” Dean says noncommittally. “That was about two weeks ago.”

“Okay,” Sam says and turns the page. Dean is asleep on Cas’s shoulder on the couch. In the photograph, Cas looks happy. He feels Cas’s eyes settle on him, but he doesn’t look up.

“No,” Dean says. “Not that one.”

Sam flips forward a few pages to a picture of Dean and Cas on the couch in a video game battle. Their backs are to the camera, but Cas has turned to look at Dean, who faces forward. Cas’s face is silhouetted against the TV screen. The photo isn’t great quality, it’s pretty blurry, but the expression on Cas’s face is adoration.

“Uh...I think so,” Dean says and looks back at Sam. “I mean, I don’t remember you taking this, but it looks familiar.”

“Hm.” Sam flips through the rest of the album, then selects the one next to it. He thumbs through the pages and presents Dean with a holiday scene. It’s Cas and Dean in the bunker, next to a short Christmas tree. Dean has on reindeer antlers and a scowl. Cas wears a Santa hat and is holding a wrapped gift on his lap. Dean’s mouth is frozen mid-shout; he’s focused on the camera, but Cas is focused on him. His expression is the same as in the last picture: sincere, sweet, like he’s looking at someone he—

Dean swallows.

“Nope,” he says.

[](http://imgur.com/meBQn6J) [](http://imgur.com/qVmQpEp)

It’s present in every picture Sam shows him, that same look on Cas’s face, right there in the open where anyone could see it. He missed it this whole time, but now that he knows, he can’t un-see it, hardly notices anything else in the photographs. He begins turning the pages himself, time traveling through the years.

They leave the bunker and begin the long drive to Vermont. There are more photographs of Dean asleep on Cas’s shoulder, except Cas’s arm moves positions: at first, it’s wrapped carefully around Dean’s shoulder to support him. Later, Dean is curled into his side, and Cas’s other hand rests with Dean’s on his leg. Their fingers are entwined. In a photo of Dean sleeping with his head on Cas’s lap, Cas is petting his hair.

“Dude, what’s with the selfie addiction?” Dean asks Cas to distract himself from the flush he can feel creeping over his neck and cheeks, the funny twinge in his stomach. Cas just shrugs.

They’re always touching. In every photo taken in Vermont, Cas is a constant presence at his side, like they exist in tandem. Dean sits next to him on a park bench, at a restaurant, on the hood of the Impala. He never smiles, but he begins to encroach on Cas’s personal space. At first, it’s a hand on his coat sleeve, an arm draped over Cas’s shoulders, fingers curled into the hair at the nape of Cas’s neck. Beside a lake, he’s holding Cas’s hand and pulling him toward the water. In a photo Dean’s sure Sam probably never meant for him to see, let alone know Sam even took, Cas has Dean’s face framed between his hands, foreheads pressed together. Their eyes are closed.

There’s a shift in the photos after that, several pages of a beautiful woman with short, dark hair and a smirk. Dean likes her immediately, recognizes her as a younger version of Sam’s wife.

“She’s gorgeous, man,” Dean says honestly.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “She is.”

The next photo of him and Cas is in front of a white and pink house, with dormer windows and a covered porch. Cas holds up a “sold” sign. Following it is a series of renovation photos: nightmarish wallpaper (it _was_ floral, he was right), outdated bathrooms with visible water damage on the ceilings, dark and cramped bedrooms the Ghostfacers would envy. Cas is covered in paint frequently. It’s on his face, streaked through his hair, all over his clothes, but he looks happy.

The house goes from white to red, and one-by-one, the guest rooms emerge. There’s a page devoted to the kitchen sink. And there, finally, when the renovations are nearly complete, it happens: In the bottom right corner of a right-hand page, there’s a smile on Dean’s face. He’s got black paint on his nose and is laughing at someone off camera. And whoever that someone is has Dean lit up like he’s—

Yeah, shit. Like he’s in love.

So it’s not surprising when Sam hands him the next album and he’s in a suit, and Sam’s in a suit. They’re on the deck, flashing matching thumbs up at the camera. Sam straightens Dean’s tie; Dean messes up Sam’s hair. Charlie’s there in an emerald green dress (appropriate) with Dorothy in tow. Jody is talking with Sam’s wife beneath a tree. And there’s Cas, waiting in front of the garage, because Dean _would_ joke that Baby should be at the ceremony (and Cas would take him seriously and insist on it).

Dean holds his breath as he turns the pages, watches Cas take his hands, hold them between their chests. He bites his lip as they laugh through the vows. It’s Dean who takes Cas’s face this time, kisses him soundly, fist pumps in victory. In the background, Baby glints her approval, decked out with a sign that reads “They finally did it” in her back window, in Sam’s chicken scratch.

Dean’s throat is tight and his eyes sting when he closes the album, but he doesn’t hand it back to Sam, just lets it rest on his knee.

He’s never thought seriously about getting married. Lisa brought it up once or twice, trying to gauge Dean’s plans for the future. They had talked about it in generalities, agreed to revisit the topic within a year, but Dean couldn’t envision himself actually going through with it. It wasn’t because he had an issue with commitment or settling down, but because he feared exactly what happened with Lisa: that his life, his real life, would catch up with him and hurt the people he loved.

Cas is still watching him silently, patiently, across the coffee table. The worry is in his eyes, in the way they’ve narrowed, the way the skin pinches together between his eyebrows. His mouth is drawn. Dean dips his chin and pinches the bridge of his nose, hard.

“You okay?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Dean lies. He rubs the back of his neck and forces a smile.

Sam looks hopeful. “Anything?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nope.”

Sam sighs and takes the album from him, sets it with the rest on the table. Cas exhales quietly.

“Listen,” Sam says, checking his watch, “I hate to do this, but if the kids get home and I’m not there—”

“You go,” Dean says quickly. “Me and Cas’ll be fine.”

“You can call me,” Sam says, “any time. I can be here in under an hour.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Let me know about next weekend.”

“I will.”

They stand up, and Sam pulls Dean into a hug before he can protest. Sam’s always given the quintessential bear hug; this is practically suffocating, but Dean squeezes him back tightly.

“See ya, Cas,” Sam offers with an outstretched hand. They shake.

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas says.

Sam bounds down the stairs and out the back door. Dean hears the engine start, the crunch of gravel under tires again as Sam eases backwards out of the driveway—he _would_ buy a station wagon. The sound reminds Dean that he’s alone with Cas again, just the two of them in this big house for the next seventy-two hours, give or take. Dean feels unbalanced and confused. He watches Sam’s car slip from the driveway, make its way down the main road and out of sight. He rubs his arms against a sudden chill.

“I have to switch over the laundry,” Cas says.

It’s an opening, and Dean promised Sammy he’d try to play nice. He extends his arm in an “after you” gesture and follows Cas inside. His willing presence in the laundry room plants a hopeful look on Cas’s face, a twist in his mouth that’s just this side of too soft. He transfers a load of sheets to the dryer and shoves a comforter into the washing machine, elbow deep.

“Hand me a detergent tablet,” he instructs. Cas is close enough to reach the jar, but Dean grabs it, twists the top, plops the orange thing in Cas’s palm. “And the fabric softener.”

When he forks over the bottle, Cas’s fingers brush his.

“Thank you,” Cas says with sustained eye contact. He smiles. Cas’s gaze is intense even without his mojo, boring into Dean like Cas thinks he can burn Dean’s memories into him if he stares long enough. Their fingers still touch around the bottle, and Dean’s brain makes the traitorous leap into illegal waters, wonders how many ways those hands have touched him. He yanks his own away, watches as Cas scrambles to catch the bottle.

He scowls as he unscrews the cap, measures the fabric softener, pours it into the tray with a practiced wrist flick. He puts the bottle away.

“What was that?” Cas demands.

“I didn’t sign up for this gay shit,” Dean snaps. It comes out meaner than he intended, but if Cas stops touching him, well, good. It doesn’t matter that they’re supposedly together in this reality. This isn’t Dean’s life, and Dean isn’t Castiel’s to handle, no matter what he’s thought about. He expects Cas to glare at him, offer a logical retort—in this place, he clearly _did_ sign up for it. He doesn’t expect Cas to grab him by the shirt, shove him against the wall. His voice is a snarl.

“I didn’t ask for you to lose your memory every other year, but I deal with it.”

Dean shoves him off with both hands. It’s weird that Cas possesses about the same strength now. He glowers, heaves a breath, and Dean prepares for a blow that never comes. The anger surrounding Cas’s eyes shifts into something defeated. He rubs his hands over his face and doesn’t come any closer.

It’s a common gesture, something he’d do himself, but on Cas it’s another a reminder of his humanity, of the cold fact that Castiel gave up everything he was to save Dean. And here Dean is, giving him crap about something that isn’t his fault, something that isn’t even that big of a deal. So they touched hands. Is Dean really that insecure that he can’t touch Cas’s hand and keep his shit together? It’s not like Cas was grappling at his fly and trying to grab his dick, or whatever it is they do.

Dean swallows but doesn’t apologize, doesn’t inch off the wall. It’s uncomfortable against his back, but he stays where he is, afraid the movement might snap Cas back into pissed-off angel mode. After all, he’s only been human for a few years.

“I have to prepare the dish for tomorrow morning,” Cas says without looking up. He walks out of the room and doesn’t close the door. Dean hears him moving items around in the pantry, the soft thud of a cabinet.

He stays in the laundry room until the phone rings, and he hears Cas answer in a tired voice, “Thank you for calling Hotel California. This is Castiel speaking. How may I help you?”

Dean switches off the light and leans in the doorway, watching Cas from behind. He’s stretching plastic wrap over a casserole dish that he carries to the refrigerator and slides onto a low shelf. Cas answers some bullshit question about minimum age for children (five and up) and whether the B&B is close enough to the lake to walk (no). He hangs up, washes his hands, and leans against the sink.

“Thought I’d take a walk,” Dean says after a while. He doesn’t phrase it as a question, but he pauses, hoping Cas will take the implied invitation as a peace offering. He doesn’t respond. Dean watches the rise and fall of his shoulders. He can’t tell if it’s anger or frustration or both. Probably both. Dean rubs the back of his neck, sniffs, and edges toward the door.

Cas lets out a breath. “I’ll go with you,” he says.

They amble through the orchard. There’s no fruit yet; it’s too early in the season. Dean’s hands are thrust into his jacket pockets. His fingers curl around a pack of gum, a scrap of slippery paper (probably a receipt), a loose thread. He pushes his glasses further up his nose as three Canada geese bleat overhead. Cas quirks his chin up to look at them.

Everything about him—his quick head movements, how he shrugs, his facial expressions, even the way he trips and steadies himself—is human. It pulls at a place deep in Dean’s gut.

“Was that too much earlier?” Cas asks after a while.

“What, the pictures?” Dean replies. Cas nods in his habitually slow manner. “I would’ve found all that out anyway.”

“Last time, we waited a few days. Sam thought it might shock you, even stunt the return of your memories. I was surprised he suggested it.”

“Don’t hide stuff from me,” Dean orders.

“I don’t,” Cas assures him. He holds Dean’s gaze for a beat and drops it.

They shuffle through the grass, past the scarecrow Dean spotted from the window. He squints at its flour-sack face and painted eyes.

“No one goes missing once a year around these parts, do they?” he asks.

“Ah,” Cas says with a knowing grin. “I recall that incident.”

“You weren’t even around then.”

Cas gives him a funny look and slows his steps. He kneels to pluck a dandelion.

“I watched you sometimes,” he says, snapping the stem. Dean stops next to him and focuses on the crown of Cas’s head, watches his hair move with the breeze.

“Before I was in Hell?”

Cas nods seriously. He turns the dandelion in his hands as he rises and resumes walking, examines the layers upon layers of spiked yellow petals. Dean stares at him.

“It’s a shame this is considered a weed,” Cas says, holding it out for Dean to see. “It’s beautiful.”

“How come I never saw you until after you pulled me out?” Dean asks.

“Our orders at the time were not to interfere,” Cas replies.

“Like the Angelic Prime Directive? How come you changed your mind?” he asks.

“You had questions,” Cas states, focusing on the ground. “I knew you wouldn’t stop looking for answers, that you wouldn’t stop looking for me once you learned my name. I deemed it...necessary.”

Dean grins at the implication that Cas broke ranks for him, right from the start. “Still can’t believe you blew out the windows of a gas station just trying to say hello,” he says lightly.

“It had been a while since I visited Earth,” Cas confesses, letting the flower tumble to his feet. He steps over it. “I’d grown used to speaking in my own voice.”

“Well, you can kiss that singing career goodbye,” Dean advises.

“It’s a shame your ears aren’t capable of rendering angelic voices,” Cas says. “I was praised for mine.”

The idea of hearing Cas’s actual voice consumes Dean momentarily. He remembers the piercing whine that about made his eardrums burst, and winces in memory.

“Who knows, maybe I’m on the guest list for Heaven,” he says casually. “You can sing for me then.”

But he won’t, because Cas doesn’t possess that voice anymore.

The restless sense of guilt returns. Dean’s always been selfish where Cas is concerned: calling when Dean or Sam needed help or guidance, but never for Cas’s sake, never to see if Cas was okay, if Cas needed anything. Not until Purgatory, when Dean found himself unwilling to leave Cas behind, slashing his way through every creature in that unholy place until he pulled Cas safely against him.

He’d been too scared for Cas’s safety to ask himself what that meant, at the time, that he’d willingly remained in Purgatory for a year to make sure Cas was freed, that he allied himself with a monster in order to ensure their escape. His thoughts drift to Benny, and Dean wonders if he still exists somewhere in the gray.

The wind blows and pulls him back to the present. Dean crosses his arms over his chest and sniffs. Cas angles his face toward the sun and closes his eyes. Dean wonders if Cas is praying. His eyelashes are long and dark. The sunlight strikes his face, illuminating it. He is bright and beautiful and otherworldly.

It stirs something in Dean that makes his hands itch, the way they itched when Dean watched Cas holding the baby in Idaho, when they saw each other again after so many weeks apart. He moves his fingers over his palms but doesn’t reach for Cas.

“I shouldn’t have been physical with you,” Cas says after a while.

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean offers. He nods toward the house. “Come on. Let’s head back.”

+

It turns out they have four cats that live outdoors and only come into the house when they’re hungry or want attention.

“They’re never allowed upstairs,” Cas assures him as Dean proactively fumbles a box of tissues. “And you take allergy medication.”

He sets a bowl of food just outside the screen door and closes it behind him. It’s a little like looking at Cas through a confessional window, his face broken up by tiny squares. Dean watches a slim, gray cat with a long tail approach, then bend her head to eat. Cas kneels beside her, rests a hand on her back and strokes twice.

“This is Kansas,” he says and stands when she raises her hair in irritation.

She eats a few bites of food, performs a serpentine around Cas’s legs, then scampers to the edge of the deck before darting across the lawn.

“She’s the friendliest,” Cas explains. “The others will come up after I go inside.”

Dean holds the door open for Cas, feels him brush past his shoulder, but a feeling of unease creeps up on him. He remembers what Sam told him about that Tuesday, the one Sam lived for the better part of a year. It had felt real, Sam said. For Sam, it had _been_ real. He’d watched Dean die a hundred different ways. Despite all efforts to break the cycle, Sam had been at the mercy of that angel-in-hiding jack off, helpless to do anything but suffer Dean’s loss again and again and again.

That had been Gabriel’s intention, for Sam to experience the loss of a brother, for him to intimately know that pain. But this place isn’t...well, it’s not exactly like he’s _suffering_ here. Sammy is happy. Cas isn’t on the run. They’re financially stable, and demons aren’t lined up around the block to kick in the front door. Despite being disquieting, the universe isn’t immediately harmful. There’s no way of predicting how long he’s going to be stuck here, if he can’t piece together why he’s here in the first place.

They do two more loads of laundry, then drape the comforters over a taut line in the yard to finish drying. Cas says he’s got to check if any midweek reservations have come in last minute. It’s rare this time of the year, he says, but it happens. There’s a home office carved into the downstairs kitchen, a drop-down touchscreen. Cas breezes through his messages.

“Nothing,” he announces, then blocks the rest of the week as taken. “We don’t need the stress,” he explains.

Dean goes upstairs while Cas makes dinner a couple hours later and paces the living room. The photo albums form a leaning stack on the coffee table where Sam left them. Dean can hear Cas moving around downstairs, and, satisfied he won’t come upstairs just yet, switches on a lamp.

He thumbs back through the album of renovation pictures and remembers Cas saying something about being featured in magazines. He purses his mouth and scans the shelf, noting a couple magazines tucked in alongside the albums. Sure enough, the first brags about “a different kind of B&B” on the front cover. He covers his mouth as he flips to it, an actual feature article that opens on a two-page spread of the Impala bedroom. There’s a small picture of him and Cas on the third page, leaning against Baby’s hood. The second article is an interview with the two of them, “A new breed of innkeepers.”

“We bought it on a whim,” Dean reads about himself. Cas countered with, “It was Dean’s idea.”

Dean laughs and puts the magazines back, then selects another album out of curiosity. The pictures in this one look different from the ones Sam and Cas took; they’ve got a blue-green hue, probably taken with a different camera.

The first couple pages are standard vacation fare: the ocean, a close-up of his feet in the waves, a row of old-fashioned houses, a horse and carriage. There’s one of Dean giving a death-glare to a valet parking ticket. Cas is solo in the next few pictures: eating ice cream on a blue bench facing the ocean, tying his shoes while sitting on a hotel bed, sampling something that’s delicious judging by the look on his face (and bag from the store in the next picture), spread out on a beach towel in patterned board shorts and sunglasses.

There’s a shot of them under a red and white striped cabana. Dean’s holding the camera at arm’s length, leaning into Cas’s side. He’s got a tan, ocean-tousled hair, and a shit-eating grin. In another, Cas gives a thumbs down in front of a white roller coaster built out over a pier, but he gives a thumbs up to a carousel and a bucket of boardwalk fries. He eats in front of an audience of seagulls.

The next few look like they were taken back in the hotel, of the two of them kissing lazily against white sheets. He rubs at the warmth spreading over his cheeks, but he doesn’t turn the page right away. He’s never admitted it to anyone, but he’s thought about kissing Cas ever since the Leviathans, ever since discovering him alive in Colorado. He’s thought about it a lot.

Seeing him with Daphne, knowing that Cas was married to someone else...it didn’t sit right. Dean felt like he’d been sucker punched, but he wasn’t sure why, at the time. All of the jokes about him and Cas had been just that, up until that moment: jokes. He’d never thought about them together seriously. The idea was ridiculous. But he couldn’t rationalize the hurt he felt when Cas didn’t recognize him, the knee jerk reaction that Cas being married to anyone else was just wrong.

He spent that long, tense car ride back to Indiana staring at Cas from the corner of his eye in disbelief. He’d never been more angry with anyone, never wanted to slug anyone so hard, never wanted to kiss anyone this badly—the brutal, selfish type that draw blood—to communicate through touch all of the roiling, nameless emotions in his gut.

For once, it didn’t matter what Cas was, just that he was here, _alive_ , an arm’s length away, but Dean never acted on the realization.

He’d gone on thinking about the two of them long after they left Cas in the hospital, half-crazy with Sam’s memories of hell; after Dean found him kneeling by the river in Purgatory; after he appeared behind Dean in the bathroom mirror, and Dean momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

He’s imagined kissing Castiel a thousand different ways, but he never thought he’d actually _do_ it.

They look good together. Comfortable. Happy. There’s a magnetism that practically vibrates off the page. He flushes deeper at an image of Cas biting his neck, and flips quickly to the end of the book, grinding the heel of his palm hard against his crotch.

The last picture is of Dean asleep. Cas undoubtedly took it. Dean’s head is on a pillow, facing the camera. There’s a smattering of stubble along his jaw, mouth slack. Dean stares at his own face for a long time, like he’s waiting for the eyes to snap open black, for the mouth to twist maliciously and whisper, “Gotcha!”

It remains a photograph.

He tosses the book to the other end of the couch and sucks on his lower lip. This is just a trick. There’s no way he’s honestly married to Cas. Things like this—they just don’t happen, not to him. He’s in the bunker recovering, and this is a fucked-up game some asshole’s playing with his head. Dean’s just gotta roll with it, suck it up until he figures out how to gank the sonofabitch.

+

He and Cas dance around each other through the evening, until Dean starts to blink with increasing frequency and Cas repeatedly scratches at his scalp. He’s yawning gape-mouthed like a cat, lazily sucking in a breath. Dean drills his eyes with a fist. They take turns in the bathroom (apply forehead to cold tile wall, add pressure, repeat) and meet again on opposite sides of the mattress.

Dean stares at it, then up at Cas.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Cas offers, lifting the pillow from his side of the bed.

Dean should protest. It’s a king-sized mattress. There’s plenty of room for both of them to just sleep. It feels wrong to banish Cas to the couch in his own home, but he’s relieved by Cas’s suggestion.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “Appreciate it.”

Cas gives him a tight-lipped smile and closes the door between the bedroom and living room. He switches on the television; the light flashes strobe-like in the gap above the floor. Dean lies on his side, bunches a pillow underneath his head, and watches it. The volume must be next to mute. He can’t make out much above a mumble, the lull of mindless chatter he could understand if he got a little closer. Is that what angel radio used to be like for Cas, a constant hum of indiscernible voices? What’s it gotta be like to exist for millions of years connected to your fellow angels, only to have that part amputated?

Cas isn’t fully human yet, not in the real world. If Dean can just get back, maybe he can convince Cas that being human’s not worth it, that even though the angels can’t restore his full grace, maybe they can give him back a part of it. He deserves better than this.

It’s a long time before Dean sees the back of his eyelids. He lies awake and listens, yawning, rolling onto his opposite side. His mind won’t settle. It’s quiet here, the nighttime sounds foreign: the rustle of tree branches overhead, a lone owl hooting, the sporadic whoosh of a passing car. Underneath the door, the light from the TV continues to dance. Dean listens and listens, minutes ticking into one another, until the sounds are no longer sounds, and he’s dreaming.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean is standing on a road.

The road is twisted, shadowed, predictably covered in a low-hanging layer of fog, that rolls from the predictably ominous forest on either side. There are no lights, no structures that he can make out in the dark. The road is unmarked. There aren’t lines designating lanes. He doesn’t recognize this place, can’t tell from the trees what part of the country it’s in.

There’s no wind, no sound of any kind; just the hard, even surface under his boots. He’s walking, but he has no idea where he’s headed. He only knows two things: it’s nighttime, and he’s alone. His pockets are empty—no cell phone, no wallet, no fake ID—so he can’t call anyone or commandeer a vehicle. He’ll have to hitch a ride, only he can’t make out the sound of any cars nearby.

The only light comes from the crescent moon overhead, partially obscured by clouds. He stops walking and turns around in place. His boots make a scraping noise on the pavement.

“Hello?” he calls into the murk, but no one answers.

He glances behind himself and in front, but he isn’t sure which direction he came from or which way he’s going. The way is unnaturally still, like he’s in a vacuum. The woods are too thick and dense to explore without a flashlight. In the fog, he’d easily become lost.

He walks, because he isn’t sure what else to do. His footsteps are the only sound. They echo off of the road ahead and of him and behind him, off of the road and the surrounding trees. It sounds like he’s both approaching and walking away from himself. The sensation makes the hairs on his neck stand up, his pulse race, so he walks faster.

He’s got to get to a phone so he can call Sam, find out where he is, how he got here. He walks for miles in the dark, but no cars pass him. He doesn’t come upon any houses. Despite how long he walks, he doesn’t tire, doesn’t sweat. But he figures the sun is bound to come up eventually, so he pushes forward despite the apparent lack of progress.

When he stops, everything appears exactly the same, as if he hasn’t moved from the place where he started. The echo of his footsteps fades, and he’s plunged into silence.

Hours and miles later, there’s a reddish glow on the horizon. He increases his pace, zips his jacket, begins to sprint toward the light. The fog lifts as the sky around him brightens.

“Dean?” he hears Cas calling to him. He whips around, but Cas is nowhere in sight.

“Cas?” Dean shouts in return, but Cas doesn’t appear, just calls Dean’s name again, quieter, like he’s moving away. Dean calls back to him again and again, until Cas’s voice is hardly above a whisper, until Dean can’t hear him anymore.

But the sun never comes up. The sky burns dark orange, and the road goes on and on.

So Dean walks.

+

When he wakes up alone in bed, he bolts upright, positive he’s back in the bunker, that yesterday was just some crazy dream. He’s probably been asleep this whole time—so it passed the typical stuff that doesn’t tend to hold up in dreams. So what?—but the room is out of focus. Even without glasses, he’s able to make out the neat lines of the orchard beyond the window. His phone confirms it’s 8:02am on Tuesday. The hope that bubbled up congeals and sinks to a sour ache in the pit of his stomach.

At least he’s not stuck in a time loop. He congratulates himself on that much luck and drags his ass into the shower. The jets pound his back so hard it stings, and his chest is mottled red when he wipes fog off the mirror with his towel. He lazily traces the tattoo with an index finger then brushes his teeth, ignoring the handprint on his shoulder that has risen red to the surface from the heat.

Cas is already dressed and downstairs in the kitchen when Dean yawns himself onto an island stool.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asks, feeling sluggish.

“Leftovers,” Cas says, passing him a mug of coffee. He smiles, then resumes flipping through the pages in a digital catalog. Upside down, it looks like camping gear. He’s on a page of tents. “They’re reheating.”

Dean drinks quietly, glad for the silence between them. It’s slightly awkward, but it’s not intolerable, kind of like being at the bunker. At least Cas isn’t staring at him, and they’re both fully clothed. He watches Cas’s fingers slide and tap across the screen, tonguing a rough spot on the inside of his cheek, tearing at it with his teeth until it hurts, until the oven timer goes off.

They don’t talk over breakfast either, but Dean takes Cas’s plate and washes it without Cas prompting, which earns him a fond look he doesn’t return. He gets a refill of coffee and settles back at the counter, drinking until he’s able to open his eyes wider than a slit. It takes three cups before he’s reasonably human.

“What’re you doing today?” he asks when Cas switches off the tablet and rolls his shoulders. It’s the first time either of them has spoken in probably ten minutes.

“I have to go into town,” Cas says. He laces his fingers behind his back and stretches cat-like. Dean thinks of another Castiel in a ramshackle cabin, reeking of pot, and has to shake off the memory. “Go to a few stores. I was planning to leave in a half hour, if you want to come.”

“Uh.” Dean applies a clawed hand to the back of his neck and scratches. “Sure.”

They take Cas’s truck, a gray extended two-door cab with a white pinstripe.

“No custom wing graphics?” Dean quips.

Cas studiously ignores him as he unlocks the cab and they climb in. Cas pushes a button to start the truck. It purrs about as loud as a house cat.

“Something’s wrong with the engine,” Dean says with concern.

“It’s electric,” Cas explains.

Dean bites back his disappointment. “Super,” he says.

They ride in humiliating near-silence through the country. From the corner of his eye, Dean takes in the bizarre sight of Cas in the driver’s seat (one hand on the wheel, an elbow on the door with fingers carding his hair). He doesn’t switch on the radio.

In town, residents immediately recognize them and wave in friendly greeting.

“The Winchesters!” a man outside the flower shop calls. “Afternoon.”

“Hello, Tom,” Cas replies as it occurs to Dean that _Winchesters_ was just applied to him and Cas. It makes him shiver.

“You took my name?” he hisses as they go inside. The shop chimes ring overhead. The store smells like a flower shop should, like daisies and fertilizer. Dean’s nose tickles, so he rubs at it stubbornly.

“I didn’t have a last name of my own,” Cas says as he skims his fingers through a bucket of cattails. “And it didn’t feel right to continue using Jimmy’s.”

Dean doesn’t offer a retort. It’s got to be strange to occupy someone else’s body. Even as a demon, Dean stayed in his own, sustained its life until Castiel healed him, choking out the last filaments of stolen grace. Dean felt Cas’s grace tremble, surge radiantly into his very core. His human heart began to beat steadily in his chest, as useless as a rhythm section in a string quartet. Cas spread his palm over Dean’s chest and pressed. He dropped his forehead to Dean’s shoulder and they breathed in unison for a moment, until Sam entered with handcuffs and led Dean to the devil’s trap.

He’s never asked how many vessels Cas has occupied, or if it was even possible for him to leave Jimmy’s body after God re-created him. Would the vessel be able to survive, or without Cas to fill it, would it simply deteriorate? And now that he’s human...

Christ, what if Jimmy’s still _in there_? He’d better be in Heaven, in the safety of his own afterlife. The man was a saint as far as Dean’s concerned, letting Cas wear him as a meat suit.

“I bet it was Sam’s idea,” Dean adds about the last name. Cas doesn’t confirm or deny this, just taps the bell to alert the shopkeeper they’re waiting.

“What are we getting here?” Dean asks under his breath.

“Sunday is Mother’s Day,” Cas answers. “I’m ordering white roses.”

Dean sniffs and hooks his thumbs through his belt loops. Mother’s Day was always a sore topic on the road with their dad. John drank generously that Sunday, and they ate in the motel room to avoid questions and pitying stares.

A woman emerges from the stock room. She’s maybe forty, with dark skin and a silver cross dangling at the hollow of her throat. Her hair is long and tied at her neck. She gives Cas a familiar smile.

“I knew I’d get you back in here,” she says confidently, wiping her hands on a green smock. It says _Rose’s_ in tall, white letters. The apostrophe is in the shape of a flower.

“The holiday arrangement was beautiful,” Cas compliments. “I’m glad your shop is doing well.”

“This must be your better half,” she says and settles her eyes on Dean. “I’m Rose.” She stares at him unapologetically, sizing him up. Dean bobs his chin at her.

“Dean. Pleasure,” he says.

His tongue slips between his lips like he’s going to lick them seductively, invite her to think about them a little, but he pulls it back and forces down the smile. He’s not going to humiliate Cas in public, even if this is a spell or a mirror universe or whatever. Because if it’s real, if there’s a chance this is actually Dean’s future, he’s not gonna risk fucking up something that’s apparently working—something he never thought he’d actually have—even if that thing is Cas in jeans and godawful sandals. He’s pointing to a display of roses in the cooler along the wall.

“Two dozen, please,” Cas says. “Dean will pick them up on Sunday morning.”

Rose catches Dean’s eyes again.

“Two dozen,” he agrees.

+

They grab lunch in a southwestern cafe. It offers outdoor seating during the summer, but the spring chill in the air makes a table beside the window a better choice. Dean slouches in the bench, wedging a shoulder against the windowsill while he mindlessly skims the menu. Cas has it memorized or always orders the same thing, because he doesn’t open his, just takes in his surroundings with a thoughtful eye-slide from table to table.

“So,” Dean says, feeling obliged to speak. “We come here a lot?”

“You get cravings for their nachos,” Cas shares.

Dean considers not ordering them on principle, but who is he to question his own taste? He orders the large portion and a pint of Budweiser.

“It isn’t five o’clock yet,” Cas says when the server goes to punch in their order.

“We’re _way_ past five o’clock,” Dean mutters and downs two beers before the food arrives.

His future self is right about the nachos; he eats so many he gets heartburn and pounds his chest like it’ll help. As he’s poking a stubborn drop of cheese broiled to the empty plate, Sam texts “How are you?” so Dean just types back “Fine” because even twelve years into the future, texting is a pain in the balls. Dean balks when Cas whips out a credit card to pay their tab.

Afterwards, they walk to a cheese shop for some wine-soaked cheddar out of Wisconsin, and a boutique bath store that sells overpriced, undersized bars of soap wrapped artfully in parchment paper. Dean wrinkles his nose at the potpourri of fragrances.

“Pickup for Winchester,” Cas informs a man slicing a colorful glycerin loaf.

Dean holds the box of soap on his lap during the ride home. Since he doesn’t have anything better to do, he pokes around inside. The individual bars are wrapped and knotted with twine. The lettering appears handwritten, broadcasting offbeat scents like “Fresh Cut Grass” and “Dirt.”

He thrusts one that reads “Bonfire” in Cas’s face. “Are you shittin’ me?” he gripes.

“Small details mean better reviews,” Cas says.

They stack the soap in a closet where the cleaning supplies and vacuum cleaner spend their idle time.

“Kevin will restock them when he cleans,” Cas says, like he’s reminding himself of it. He shuts the closet and gets out a bowl to feed the cats.

He spends the early afternoon at the computer, researching coffee cake recipes while Dean infuses his brain with a second round of caffeine and idly kicks the side of the island.

“Mocha chip?” Cas suggests.

Dean lifts his face out of his coffee long enough to transmit a long, querulous look.

“You’re right,” Cas says. “It’s expected. What about Lemon Blueberry?”

Dean grimaces and shakes his head.

“Apple Caramel Cinnamon?”

“Why not,” he mutters to stave off another option, but Cas scratches something in a notebook and continues scrolling. Dean rolls his eyes in boredom.

“What about something with sausage?” he suggests petulantly, since he’s doomed to a future of bread and an ever-expanding midsection. Maybe he’s actually in this reality to convince Cas to change the menu.

When Cas dryly suggests that perhaps Dean should take over the recipe search, Dean mumbles that he’s going outside. He retreats to the solitude of the garage.

“Sanctuary,” he whispers to Baby.

He removes her tarp and sets it, balled up, on a two-by-four foot workbench. She’s almost exactly the same, except for a few new nicks and dents on the driver’s side door, and a Vermont license plate. It’s probably legitimate, like their marriage license. Dean found it in the filing cabinet an hour ago while trying to locate an invoice from the plumber.

“Insurance company,” Cas grated out as he took the invoice Dean proffered, flapped it in the air, and went to make a phone call.

Dean’s fingers still touched the fan of tabbed folders (Mortgage, License and Inspections, Donations, Medical, Personal) written in Cas’s neat handwriting. He pried that last folder open, lifted its contents with a pinch, skimmed each document, and let the stack drop back into the folder. The license was an insignificant sheet of paper at first glance, but something about it made him study it closely. It had both of their signatures, and Sam’s scrawled on the witness line. Cas had signed as Castiel Novak. The paper was dated and notarized, and caused a lump to form in Dean’s throat. He went cold all over, then hot, dropping the paper like it might sear his fingertips. He wonders if Cas meant for him to see it.

The details in this place are damned near perfect. He needs a clear-cut sign of it being fake, like the devastation of Dr. Sexy in sensible footwear, or a TV screen that skips into focus on _Casa Erotica 22_.

Baby doesn’t give him any clues. Her battery is predictably dead. He cleans her battery terminals, attaches a charger. He checks her tire pressure to make sure the flat from two days ago was just from her sitting, not an active leak. Pressure’s good; he kicks the tire with his right toe, satisfied when it bounces off. They’ll take her the next time they go out, blaze into town on the red carpet of her respectable exhaust. There’s flying under the radar and there’s invisibility.

He checks Baby’s fluid levels, her odometer. She’s only got forty thousand more miles on her than he remembers. They racked up two thirds of her mileage during his lifetime. She’s his longest-term relationship, he considers as he ensures her wiper blades aren’t dry rotted.

When he shuts the garage, he leaves her uncovered with the hood propped up and charger running. He’ll wash her tomorrow, inside and out.

When he goes inside to clean his hands, what little peace she brought him swirls away in a tan stream down the drain. The queasy feeling returns when he looks his old-man self in the eye. He looks away and leaves the tap open until the water runs clear.

+

Dean avoids the guests during check-in on Friday night, but Saturday morning Cas is kneading some kind of dough with rapt attention and jerks his head toward the coffee machine.

“Brew another pot,” he directs. Dean gives him an eyebrow. “I only have two hands, Dean,” Cas reminds him. Dean’s eyebrow lifts higher.

“What about your six wings?”

Cas’s glare effectively communicates that Cas finds Dean’s statement inappropriate and borderline offensive, so with a scoff Dean scoots off the stool and plants himself in front of the coffee machine.

“I have no idea how to work this thing,” he says. He feels justifiably idiotic. He can summon the King of Hell, draw a sigil from rote, rebuild an engine with his eyes closed, but he can’t operate a damned kitchen appliance.

“It would help to switch it on,” Cas offers and sprinkles flour over the thing he’s handling.

“Yeah?” Dean says with mock sweetness. “Thanks for the tip.”

Cas’s smile is thin. He goes back to whatever the hell he’s doing. It takes a minute, but Dean finds the power button on the back of the machine. With a jerk of his head, Cas directs him to a canister of freshly ground coffee beans (”I ground them this morning.”), which Dean adds scoop by scoop until Cas tells him it’s enough.

“Water?” Dean asks.

“There’s a tank.”

“Awesome,” Dean says flatly.

“Press the large button on the front.”

He does. It glows blue, but nothing happens. Cas is back to kneading, so Dean prods the machine with his index finger, like it’ll goad it into functioning. It’s probably a coincidence that the machine begins to glug and hiss after that, like a pissed-off water spirit ready to strike, drag him down and choke him full of algae.

The coffee starts to drip into the pot, so Dean migrates back to the counter to resume his seat only to have Cas order him to retrieve the carafe from the dining room. Dean doesn’t bother to ask if Cas is seriously putting him to work because _of course he is_ , so Dean grudgingly shows his face in front of the guests just long enough to locate the carafe, unplug it, and get out before anyone asks questions. The last thing he needs is some wrinkled, Ben Gay-toting blue hair from Bumblefuck, Michigan asking how long he and Cas have been knocking boots. He smiles tightly and retreats to the kitchen with the excuse of bringing more coffee.

Predictably, Cas makes him take it back out and serve all five people still loitering in the front room: two on chairs next to a fireplace he hadn’t noticed (not lit, thankfully), a couple seated at a bistro set next to the bay window beside the front door, and one woman by herself with a tablet obscuring her face. He refills her cup without asking and hightails it upstairs with the excuse of catching up on twelve years of current events, but he actually lowers the shades and sleeps shamelessly.

When the guests have finished eating and gone out for the day (Lake Champlain or some jazz, Cas told him pre-coffee), Cas comes upstairs to find Dean in a pillow of drool.

“I know it’s only been a week,” he says from the door, “but I want you to speak with someone.”

“Yeah? Why don’t _you_ speak with someone,” Dean slurs. “Not gonna happen.”

“It could help. It did last time.”

“No one’s poking around my brain.” Dean says it with authority. Predictably, Cas counters him with matching intensity.

“It’s not a request.” His tone is calm, but there’s no give in it.

“Hell do you think you are?” Dean spits, realizing the stupidity of the question as soon as it leaves his mouth. He rolls onto his other side so he can’t see Cas, but he can still hear him exhale with frustration.

“What do you want for dinner tonight?” Cas asks after a long silence. His voice has gone cold and dismissive.

“I’m going back to sleep,” Dean mutters and punches his pillow into a more comfortable shape. He’s relieved to hear the door close.

+

When he wakes again, it’s dark outside. The room is cast in long shadows stretched finger-like between the blinds. Dean arches into a yawn, anticipates the crack in his spine. It’s sweet when it comes and he flops back, blinking and yawning against the back of his hand until his eyes open. He takes a filling breath all the way to his belly and holds it, then exhales in a whoosh. On the first floor, the dryer finishes running. Cas must still be awake, but Dean has no idea what time it is. He checks his phone; it’s a little after eleven. He literally slept all day.

He groans into the bathroom, splashes water over his face and makes it his goal to get the Impala started and find a bar. He finds his old leather jacket in the closet and slings it over his arm before sneaking out the kitchen—Cas isn’t in sight—and across the moonlit yard. A pair of greenish eyes, probably one of the cats, tracks him from the orchard’s edge. It’s creepy; he throws a rock in that direction, and the cat scampers off.

With the rotation of his wrist, the satisfaction of an actual key pinched between his fingers, Baby growls to life.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs and pats her wheel appreciatively.

He retraces the route Cas used to drive to the flower shop. If that town—the heck was it called?—is big enough to support a florist, it’s sure as hell big enough for a watering hole or two.

The drive takes just shy of thirteen minutes; he leaves the window rolled down and lets the night air rush over his face. It’s dropped down into the forties; the cold air makes his eyes water and sting. The tears collect at the inside corner of both eyes. With a rough swipe of his jacket cuff, he brushes them away.

Once he rolls into town (Essex Junction, the sign reminds him), he finds a bar easily. There’s one right on the main drag, one of the few buildings lit up, a yellow cast out narrow windows that are half obscured by signs advertising a special on beer by the case. He parks a block away and rolls up the windows.

Walking into a new bar for the first time has become old school. Dean’s never lived anywhere long enough to be considered a regular, so it’s novel when he drags an open stool back far enough to sit and opens his mouth to order, only to have the bartender say, “Usual?”

One meaty hand hovers over a bottle of Jack. The hand is attached to a thick wrist, and the wrist to a large man with a bulbous, shiny head and glasses.

“Thanks” Dean says and reaches for his wallet. It’s pleasantly full of bills. He throws a folded twenty on the bar.

“Rough day?” the bartender continues. Dean shrugs against the clink clink clink of ice tumbling into a glass, the crackle of the ice fracturing as the whiskey streams over it, pools amber at the base, and begins to rise. He downs the glass in two swallows and raps his knuckles on the wooden bar for another pour. The bartender chuckles.

“Rough _night_?” he amends. The way he stresses the second word and opens his eyes knowingly, he’s asking if there are problems at home.

“Lotta check-ins,” Dean mutters vaguely.

The bartender pours another glass and leaves the bottle between them.

“At least you got out for a while.”

He turns away to fill another drink order, leaving Dean to stare at his glass and the polished bar and the melange of bottles occupying three tiers. He could drink himself stupid for a few weeks with the keys to this place. It’s a comfortable space: not a tourist trap, not pretentious, not a dive. The stools are padded but not torn; a television flashes muted infomercials overhead. He finishes his second glass more slowly and slides it forward for another, then a third, then a fourth. He doesn’t realize it’s gone to his head until the door chimes clang and his eyes track a second behind the motion of his head.

“Kitchen still serving?” he slurs, remembering he didn’t eat anything since breakfast. He’s fucked to drive unless he gets something in his stomach. The bartender is wrist-deep in soapy water, cleaning pint glasses that he sets to dry upside down on a rack next to the sink. He gives Dean a searching look.

“Just fried stuff. Wings okay?”

“Fine,” Dean agrees.

“Hot or mild today?”

“Hot, hold the celery.”

“Always do,” the bartender says and dries his hands on a towel, turning to punch Dean’s order into the register. Dean’s phone buzzes against his hip, but he doesn’t answer it. If it’s Cas, he doesn’t want to talk to him right now. If it’s Sam, he’ll lecture Dean for drinking too much and tell him to call Cas. If it’s anyone else, they can sure as shit wait until tomorrow. The bartender holds up the bottle of Jack and eyes Dean’s empty glass. Dean shakes his head.

“Switching to beer,” he says and gets a pint of Bud. It’s flat, a little skunky. Keg’s probably low. He smacks his lips together to clear the taste. It’s not like he needs to be drinking a month’s worth of calories in one night, not in this body. He catches his head in his left hand and picks at a scab behind his ear.

The glass in his right hand is solid and cold. It exists, just like the building itself and the man serving him exist. If an angel’s behind it, how come he hasn’t shown his mug yet? Dean’s been here almost a week, longer than Zachariah made him stay in that disease-infested future or that he and Sam spent in that ridiculous alternate universe where Balthazar zapped them, the one where they were both actors. A world without monsters is easily one of the most absurd concepts he’s ever heard, but at least they’d only been stuck there for a couple days and had a shit ton of cash.

Dean’s phone buzzes again. His money’s on Sam, who probably got a call from Cas wondering if Sam knows where Dean is, so Sam wants to make Dean talk about feelings and their plans for next weekend. Dean might be more optimistic about the visit, if just Sam were coming up, but with the wife and kids on top of it—

Dean shivers at the thought. Kids. What if they start talking to him? What’s he supposed to say? He can’t tell them he forgot who they are. That kind of shit can give kids a complex. And what if he gets pulled back to his reality the next day. Is he supposed to forget meeting Sam’s kids, act like none of this ever happened, like he’s unaffected by any of it? What if he likes them? What if they like him? What if he finds out he's actually into this uncle thing only to have it stripped away? No way, it’s better to stay at a distance from everyone (Sam, his kids, _definitely_ Cas) until Dean’s sure. The less emotional investment, the better.

The phone goes off again, an irksome vibration in his hipbone. This time, Dean pulls it out and rejects the call, but not before he catches sight of Cas’s icon. It’s a picture of him on the beach, shirtless, with a goofy smile that is totally unlike Cas and yet feels so genuinely like him that Dean can only stare at the place where it briefly appeared. The screen reads “Call rejected, Castiel Winchester, 12:42am.”

His stomach does a funny twist at that; he shouldn’t like it as much as he does, but something warm and possessive flares in him. He repeats the name in his head while spinning the ring ’round and around his finger.

“Cas coming to get you?” the bartender asks. Dean still hasn’t caught his name, but at least that’s not a required part of bar etiquette.

“Uh,” he says and idly scratches the side of his neck. He can sleep in the Impala. It won’t be the first time. “I think so.”

“If you need a cab, just let me know in the next twenty minutes. Don’t want you waiting in the cold.”

The idea of leaving his car parked in town overnight, even a small town like this one, makes Dean uneasy. Baby’s the only thing unchanged by the years. He doesn’t want to think what could happen to her parked on a narrow street in Podunk USA. Still, he moves his head in agreement and nurses the beer to give his hands an occupation. On TV, a man is advertising a vacuum so powerful it can pull a small car with the suction.

“Now _that’s_ a blow job,” he jokes out loud, though no one seems to hear him.

The chimes sound, and Dean’s irritated that of all the empty seats at the bar—when did everyone leave?—this jerk’s gotta pick the stool just next to his.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Cas says, concerned and pissed off and maybe a little relieved. Dean rolls his eyes in a wide, dramatic arc and sighs.

“Wasn’t in a talking mood,” he answers.

“Apparently not,” Cas mutters as he sweeps his eyes over Dean’s hunched-over form. “We have alcohol at home,” he says reproachfully.

“I needed a change of scenery.”

Cas’s face softens a little. “Saturdays are always hectic.” The way he says it, Dean can tell Cas understands he isn’t upset about the guests.

“Yup,” Dean agrees and taps his fingers into the condensation. It slides down the glass and puddles on the bar top. Dean drags his pinkie through it.

Cas leans across him for the beer and drinks. He makes a face. “I’ve never liked beer,” he confesses.

“It’s flat,” Dean says. He makes a weak gesture toward the bartender, squinting. “What’s his name?”

“Luke.”

“Am I in here a lot?”

Cas thinks for a moment. “Maybe once a month.”

“I can’t drive,” Dean says, drawing in a deep breath and yawning it out.

“We’ll come back for the car in the morning. I have to pick up the flowers anyway.”

“Shit, sorry.” Dean scrubs at his face. Cas folds his hands together on the bar top and looks at Dean thoughtfully.

“Are you ready to leave?” he asks.

Dean shrugs. Cas dips his head and inhales quietly. The music isn’t playing any longer. Dean can hear Cas breathing. As if on cue, Luke wanders into the kitchen, leaving them alone.

“I feared caring for you when we first met,” Cas says to his hands. The way his fingers overlap one another conceals the wedding band, but he moves them in a manner that makes Dean think he’s rubbing it. He instinctively looks at his own, then away. Dean doesn’t say anything, but he lifts his chin toward Cas to indicate he’s listening. Cas heaves another breath. “It meant weakness. It meant I was vulnerable.”

“That why you were such a dick?”

“My initial manner was partly due to my nature as an angel, and largely because you were exasperating.”

“A pain in your feathery ass?”

“I was intentionally distant,” Cas confirms, “but it only delayed the love I have for you. It could not prevent it.”

Dean’s face goes instantly red, a horrible pinprick sensation that spreads across his cheeks. Overwhelmed, he cranes his neck to look at the empty seat to his right. It’s weird, Sam not sitting on it. When’s the last time they grabbed a beer? They’ll get one, the next time Sam is in town.

Cas is watching him. Dean can feel his gaze somehow, settled on the back of his neck. He doesn’t look back at him until he hears Luke shuffle up. Dean awkwardly cleans his glasses on a sleeve so Cas isn’t in focus.

“Is he all set?” Cas asks Luke, who stands wiping down the bar.

“He’s good,” Luke assures him, eyes darting between them. “You two have a good night.”

“Thank you,” Cas says. Dean feels Cas’s hand settle protectively on his upper back. When he rubs a circle over Dean’s shoulder blade, it makes him think of wings. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, clamoring off the stool and straightening his jacket. Cas keeps a firm hand on his back even when they’re outside. Dean doesn’t fight it, slumps into him a little. Cas holds open the truck door and helps Dean into his seat.

“I got it,” Dean snaps.

“I know,” Cas murmurs as he lets Dean fumble with his seat belt, then reaches over to fasten it. Dean catches a whiff of him as Cas leans over him. He holds in that breath and leans his head against the window, which Cas cracks open after he starts the truck. It blows a comforting, steady stream of air over Dean’s face.

“You sure my car’s okay overnight?” he asks with sudden panic.

“No one would dare touch it,” Cas assures him and drops a hand to Dean’s knee in reassurance as they glide out of town.

He should shove Cas’s hand away, but it makes his stomach flip to have Cas touch him like that, on his knee, like a lover might. Dean feels the heat of Cas’s palm, the slow massage he makes with a thumb over Dean’s kneecap. Dean used to reach over sometimes when he and Lisa were out, rest a hand on her thigh. He never thought about why he did it. It was just something he did when they drove together, like how she tucked her feet under his leg when they watched TV.

He wonders at all the little ways Cas has undoubtedly learned to touch him in a decade. He probably learned this from Dean. He touches Cas sometimes: a thwack on the shoulder when they’re laughing, a light punch, maybe a hand on Cas’s arm to make sure he’s okay. But nothing quite like this.

He remembers a day a couple years back. He’d gone thirty-six hours with no sleep, and ended up fumbling his FBI badge in the Impala’s footwell. He leaned over Cas to grab it, anchoring himself with a hand on Cas’s leg. He didn’t immediately remove it when he sat back up. Jimmy’s suit pants were thin, surprisingly soft. Dean squeezed the hard cord of muscles without thinking, until he noticed Cas observing him curiously, and yanked his hand away.

“Nice pants,” he muttered and assumed his best fed face.

It had been the first touch like that, one that crossed a nameless line, but not the last. Certainly not the last. It happened again when they were leaving Rufus’s cabin, the morning they stormed Sucrocorp. The weather was good; Robert Plant belted out, “ _I’m still searching for my baby._ ” Meg hadn’t shown her smoke all morning, and they’d left Sam catching flies on the cabin’s only bed. Cas looked out the window and back at Dean, smiling, ducking his head to peer at a bird that flitted across the windshield. Dean reached to crank up the volume on the chorus, but Cas caught his hand, held it gently, regarded Dean softly. Dean was so desperate to have Cas back that he allowed it, anything to stop him talking about bees and freaking cats. They rode quietly, hands joined on Cas’s leg. He ignored the twist in his gut, the stupid smile at the corner of his mouth. It was just to make Cas feel better, he counseled himself, and no one was around to see. He thought about that a lot in Purgatory.

But the last time had been outside a fast food joint in Rexford. Cas had nodded off mid-sentence and was lightly snoring. Dean settled a hand on his leg to wake him. He couldn’t get used to Cas in human getup, that lame blue vest and a name tag. Cas still had a few hours before he had to be back at the gas station, and the dude was beat. It was Dean’s fault that Cas was living in this town. He still felt like a world-class asshole, kicking Cas out of the bunker without an explanation. The least he owed him was a hot meal and a few decent hours of sleep. In the end, Dean didn’t wake him up, ordered three burgers with the works, pulled off to the side of the road, and ate with a hand firmly gripping the wheel, not sure if his relief was because Cas was okay following the attack, or because his thing with Nora wasn’t actually a date.

They’ve been evolving for a long, long time.

Cas’s thumb is still rubbing comforting circles into Dean’s knee. Being with Cas like this feels easy, instinctive. He could put a hand on top of Cas’s right now or rest it on his leg, touch his face. No one would question it. But before he has a chance, Cas’s hand stills and he removes it. Dean is unexpectedly disappointed, and his confidence falters.

He thinks about Cas’s hand until the truck isn’t moving any longer and Cas is standing outside the open passenger door, guiding Dean from the truck, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. They stagger together across the lawn.

+

Cas helps him out of his clothes and into a clean t-shirt and fresh boxers, directs him to the sink to brush his teeth, then steers him toward the bed. Dean doesn’t protest too much. He looks up at Cas through bleary eyes as Cas pulls the sheet over his legs and removes Dean’s glasses.

“There’s water on the nightstand,” Cas murmurs, setting the glasses beside the cup.

“Okay,” Dean says and watches Cas’s hands.

He wants Cas to stay, stretch out next to him, breathe the same air for a while. It’s nice, not being alone. He pats the bed. Cas hesitates but sits on the edge. He looks at Dean fondly, brushes the hair back from his forehead.

Dean captures his wrist, feels his own pulse beating where his thumb is pressed to Cas’s skin. Cas is hot, and he smells _good_. Dean thinks about Cas’s hands on his body and vibrates with a nervous energy, the atmospheric crackle of an approaching storm. Dean moves his thumb across the inside of Cas’s wrist, over the rise of tendons, travels along the roadmap of veins. He stares at Cas’s mouth and licks his own, then meets Cas’s eyes. Cas blinks too fast, swallows, frowns like he might say something but merely parts his lips, shakes his head desperately.

Cas’s lips are warm, smooth, and unmoving when Dean surges upright and kisses him. He awkwardly props himself up on an elbow, trying to get a better angle, but Cas pulls away by degrees, until their mouths are no longer touching.

“What?” Dean asks, confused.

Cas shakes his head and kisses Dean’s cheek, stands with a tight jaw.

“Goodnight,” he says.

Dean squeezes his eyes and mouth shut and doesn’t cringe when the door clicks closed.

+

The sound of the Impala’s engine roaring up the driveway startles Dean awake. The car shuts off. What follows is a few seconds of quiet, then a jumble of keys and footsteps on the back porch. He makes out two distinct voices; someone must have gone with Cas into town. Dean groans as the hangover beats its revenge through his skull. He buries his face in the pillow.

He must nod off, because the next time he lifts his head, the sunlight is in a different position on the wall and his mouth feels like cotton. The sheet and pillow are soaked through with sweat. He jerks the sheet off his body and lets the still air dry him. Panting, he gropes the nightstand for the water he vaguely remembers that Cas left for him. There are two white pills he hopes are painkillers and chokes down on faith. He collapses back against the mattress, dropping his pillow to the ground, and flings an arm over his face to block the light.

He kissed Cas last night. Why the hell did he kiss Cas? Is he trying to make the situation even more complicated? No more whiskey for a while, he vows. It makes him sentimental. It takes twenty minutes for the painkillers to set in and halve the pain in his forehead, then Dean climbs into the shower and lets the hot water run over his back. The tiles are a cool respite for his face; he leans a cheek against them.

There’s a single mug of coffee waiting for him in the upstairs kitchen, but it’s gone cold. He microwaves it for a minute until it’s steaming, then folds himself onto the couch. It smells like Cas. He doesn’t have the energy to get up and move to the chair, so he tries not to think about which direction Cas positions his head when he sleeps, if it’s on the opposite side of the couch or on the cushion where Dean is sitting. He thinks of his own Cas, curled up underneath a blanket, drained from the loss of his grace.

The coffee lifts the rest of the fog that made Dean’s eyes heavy. He pads to the bookshelf and runs a finger over the spines, unsurprised by the familiar titles: _Sirens of Titan_ , _Breakfast of Champions_ , _Slaughterhouse Five_. He takes down _Cat’s Cradle_ and thumbs partway through the book, to the part where the characters arrive on San Lorenzo only to find it’s all a facade, that everything on the island is actually shit. That’s what he always thought a domestic life like this would be like: it would seem great at first, ideal, but eventually the fantasy would crack, revealing nothing he really wanted. It had been okay shacking up with Lisa, better than he thought, but it obviously hadn’t ended well.

Around nine thirty, Dean hears Cas climbing the stairs. He finger-combs his hair and straightens his shirt, adjusts his glasses and keeps his eyes on the page. He was drunk last night. Nothing he said or did means anything. He’s gotta get out of here for a while, put some distance between them. He clears his throat, readies himself for the argument, but the face that appears at the top of the stairs doesn’t belong to Castiel. The man is about Dean’s age (well, Dean’s _real_ age) with dark skin and short-cut hair. He’s carrying a tray laden with food and a glass of orange juice. Dean’s stomach growls appreciatively at the sight.

“Dean,” the man says with a laugh and shake of his head. He has an infectious smile and wide-set eyes. “Heard _you_ had fun last night.”

This has to be Kevin. He sets the tray down on the coffee table with a lack of ceremony. “Cas said you’d be hungry. He specified egg whites, but I brought you bacon.”

“Good man,” Dean says and snatches a strip. He moans around the flavor.

“Next time I need a day off,” Kevin says, plopping himself into the armchair and stabbing a finger at Dean, “you’re on my side.”

“Deal,” Dean agrees and eats a second piece. Kevin laces his fingers together and puts his hands behind his head, so his elbows stick out.

“You really don’t remember me,” Kevin laughs with disbelief, “otherwise you’d never agree to that.”

“Why not?”

“Cause it means you’ve gotta show face downstairs. How many years did you forget?”

Dean takes the glass of orange juice from the tray and drinks a third of it noisily. “About a decade,” he says.

“Man,” Kevin says again. “Were you even with Cas back then?”

“Just friends,” Dean replies.

“Shit. You surprised?”

Dean shrugs half-heartedly. Kevin arches his back and winces when it cracks, unhooks his hands and leans forward in the chair.

“Nothing wrong with falling in love,” he offers.

“What, d’you moonlight for Hallmark?” Dean knows that he sounds peevish. The headache has moved behind his left eye; it feels like someone is boring a rod through his pupil.

“Look,” Kevin says, “I know you don’t remember me, but if you need to talk about it...”

“Appreciate it,” Dean cuts him off and rubs his head.

“No problem,” Kevin says lightly. He palms his thighs and gets up. “Laundry calls. Shout if you need anything. I’ll be in the laundry room.”

“Thanks, man,” Dean says and forks the anemic helping of eggs. He unscrews the bottle of hot sauce and soaks them in a layer of cayenne pepper, glad when it burns his throat.


	3. Chapter 3

The week passes with infuriating sluggishness. Dean spends it chatting idly with Kevin (they’re both into vintage cars and medical dramas) and channel surfing from his chosen place on the couch, a safe distance from any mirrors. He marathons _Dr. Sexy_ on Netflix for hours, until his skin feels tacky and he forces himself to shower. He doesn’t let himself get near Cas, and Cas takes the hint. They spend their days on opposite floors.

But Friday morning, Dean’s tucked onto a stool watching Cas sift flour with the same concentration he pays to drawing sigils. The thought of another day on the couch upstairs, surrounded by Cas’s scent, knowing he’s sleeping there—he’d actually rather be in the kitchen watching Cas bake. Cas moves around the kitchen effortlessly, as if he never was an awkward not-quite-human.

Dean slurps iced tea because Cas gave him the eye when he rooted through the fridge for beer at eleven in the morning.

“There’s tea in the pitcher. It’s freshly brewed,” he informed Dean in a helpful but frosty former-angel tone. Dean cursed but relinquished his hold on the bottle. The tea is cold, at least, a different kind of soothing, like a lazy summer afternoon. It makes Dean think of Lawrence, of fresh lemon wedges, sitting next to his mom on the porch swing, patting her rounded belly.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said to it conspiratorially, dangling his legs.

“What if it’s a girl?” his mother reminded him with a smile as she toed the porch to rock the swing.

“It’s still Sammy,” Dean declared with conviction and a shrug, as if he already knew their story.

Cas gradually adds the flour into a mixer actively churning butter and sugar. It’s candy apple red, probably a commercial model from the size of it. Cas is wearing a white apron to protect his clothes. It’s tied at his neck and waist and has handprints that sit just over his ass where they wrap around his hips. He should look ridiculous in it but doesn’t—it’s oddly attractive—tapping the last of the flour into the mixer, then adding a measure of baking powder and a pinch of salt.

“What’re you making, anyway?” Dean grunts.

“Something for this afternoon,” Cas answers and switches off the mixer. “I like to offer food at check-in.” He detaches the bowl and pours the contents into a square baking dish. Dean yawns and turns on the stool so he faces the window.

It’s beautiful here, cast in the lush green of late spring. The grass needs to be cut, but it’s drizzly outside.

“How’d you learn this stuff?” Dean asks as a dark bird with black, iridescent glossy feathers lands on the porch and begins to preen.

Cas is a while to answer, watching the bird too, and finally says, “You weren’t eating.”

“So you learned to cook?”

Cas gives a noncommittal shrug and sprinkles something on top of the batter, then puts it in the wall oven. Dean feels the blast of heat after Cas closes it the door. The oven beeps as Cas sets the timer.

“I did what was necessary,” Cas says.

Dean frowns and tongues at a rough spot on the inside of his cheek when his phone chimes. He looks at it suspiciously.

“Who’s Kate?” he asks.

“She’s a hunter out of New Jersey.”

“The hell does she want?”

“I assume her message will fill in the details,” Cas says mildly. Dean makes a face at him but taps on the phone until her full message is on the screen.

“She wants me to call her,” he says. “Says there’s something down her way.”

“Your office is in the garage,” Cas says. Dean’s got an office? Why is Cas just mentioning this now? Dean scowls as Cas removes the apron with a sigh. “It’s locked,” he says. “I’ll show you.”

They walk across the yard. The sky is misting. Dean wipes the sheen of it from his forehead and cheeks as Cas lifts the garage door, then lets it close behind them. He points to a door next to the workbench and produces a key ring, counts over five keys until he comes to a square, silver one. The lock clicks when he turns it. Cas pushes the door open but doesn’t switch on the light.

“I have to talk with Kevin about this weekend,” he says, “and make sure he’s alright keeping an eye on things while Sam and Susan are here.”

He hands the keys to Dean and starts toward the house without looking back at Dean, who steps inside the room. He hears the garage door rise and fall as he gropes for the light switch. He finds it between two studs, just a plastic electrical box. The light is dim, a single overhead bulb, but it’s enough to make out the space.

It has a cramped, packrat vibe: haphazard piles of paper, stacks of yellowed books, a laptop being held together by duct tape. There’s a map of the United States pinned to the wall behind a desk. The map is dotted with sticky notes and pushpins, with the greatest concentration in New England. The pins are a variety of colors, but he notices a trend: there are a majority of blue pins in Florida, white pins in the Pacific Northwest. In Vermont, the pins are primarily red. Are they designating a species?

His eyes flit to New Jersey and land on a note that reads “Leeds.” It sounds familiar. Reaching into his pocket for his phone, Dean rolls his eyes and hopes he’s not dealing with some bullshit local myth.

Kate answers on the first ring.

“This might be a record,” she says. “I didn’t even have to make a blood sacrifice.”

“Hey,” he says and tries to imagine what Bobby would ask. “So...what do you need?”

“What I need is for you and Castiel to honor your promise and actually visit this summer,” she says with a small laugh, then clears her throat. “But I actually got in touch ’cause I found that demon.”

“Demon,” he repeats. The word feels wrong in his mouth. “What do you know?”

“It’s lower level,” Kate says. “Didn’t touch me. I hit it with holy water last night before it smoked out, blistered the face it was wearing.”

“What’s the M.O.?”

“That’s the thing—it’s weird. It’s not doing anything but jumping bodies.”

“What kind of body trail are we talking about?”

“No, it isn’t killing anyone,” Kate stresses. “Just...borrowing them temporarily, taking them for a joy ride, then leaving. Beautiful girls. Wears them like a prom dress for an evening, goes drinking, smokes out.”

“How often?”

“Every couple weeks. Enough of the girls have come forward that it’s drawing attention. I want to quash it before this thing gets any bigger, goes mainstream.”

“Where?” Dean asks.

“Pine Barrens,” she says, irritated.

He looks back at the name Leeds and remembers why it’s familiar. The Jersey freaking Devil? He exhales into his fist.

“Can you come down here?” she continues. “I can track it, but I’d feel better with someone more experienced.”

“I—” he begins. A couple days in New Jersey are just what the doctor ordered. It’ll give him the space he needs to think, keep him from doing something stupid like kissing Cas again. “Let me call you back,” he tells her.

“Fine,” she sighs with mild irritation before she laughs and the call disconnects.

A large, crotchety cat sidles in the door, glares at Dean, and hops up onto the filing cabinet.

“Get the hell off of there,” Dean orders. The cat studiously ignores him, so Dean doesn’t feel much remorse when he grips him by the scruff and tosses him outside on his way back inside.

“You look confused,” Cas observes when Dean finds him leaning over the computer, scrolling through a gardening blog. Dean washes his hands of the cat fur.

“She wants me to come there and help with a demon,” he tells Cas and wipes his hands on his jeans.

Cas straightens and presses a button that makes the screen go dark, then meets Dean’s eyes. “I’m not surprised. Even though you’re retired, you’re still considered the best hunter on the east coast.”

“The east coast?” Dean asks, but he realizes Cas is smirking.

“You usually assign someone,” he says, “especially if it’s a simple case.”

“So I just sit back, let someone else have all the fun?”

Cas takes a breath and drops his eyes to Dean’s chest. “You made a choice,” he says. Dean knows Cas is talking about them. He swallows hard and points a finger at himself.

“ _I_ didn’t make any choice,” he says. “Okay? _None_ of this is my choice.” It comes out harsher than he intended.

Cas winces. His nod is slow. He thumbs his lower lip and takes several breaths, like he’s debating whether to say something or not. His knuckles are white, but he looks more queasy than angry.

“It’s your decision,” he concedes after a minute and steps around Dean to the refrigerator, fishes out a beer.

“Thought you said it’s too early?” Dean accuses.

Cas flips the bottle cap into the sink and goes outside without another word.

Through the window, Dean watches him pace the rows in the garden, holding the beer between his palms. His lips are moving slightly, eyes half closed like he’s praying. So Dean’s future self doesn’t go on hunts anymore. That’s fine, but that’s not him. This is not his life.

He texts Kate back, “Now?”

She responds, “As soon as you can.”

“Give me a couple hours,” he types in closing and shoves the phone into his pocket.

Cas has stopped next to a trellis maybe four feet tall with an odd scroll pattern—it might be Enochian. He rests a hand on it and bows his head. Dean’s probably supposed to feel bad, but he doesn’t have time if he’s going to leave tonight. He starts rooting through the cabinets for salt. He finds a bag and hoists it onto the counter, where Cas notices it forty minutes later when he comes inside to check the oven.

“So you’re going,” he says, noting the assortment of weapons Dean has laid out on the island. Dean sharpens a short knife on a leather strap.

“Not gonna sit around with a thumb up my ass, waiting for my memories to come back.”

“Of course.” Cas’s tone is clipped. He secures foil over the pan and switches off the oven. “Are you leaving right away?”

“Soon as I’ve got this stuff ready,” Dean says.

“What about Sam?” Cas reminds him. “They were going to drive up tomorrow.”

“He’ll understand,” Dean says. “You gonna be good here?”

“We’ll be fine,” Cas says thinly. He scans the blade, the crowbar, the rounds of salt. “The guests will start arriving around 4:30. You will have this kitchen cleared out before then.”

Dean glares at him but stops sharpening, lets the leather strap drop onto his lap. He slams the blade down with the others and rolls the whole collection into a bundle that he tucks under his arm. He stands roughly.

“Happy?” he snaps as he stalks out the door.

“No,” Cas says and begins to wipe down the counter.

+

Dean wastes an hours in the garage going over the map Kate forwarded to him. It pinpoints the body snatches. They’ve all occurred within a twenty-mile radius of Chatsworth, in the heart of the Pine Barrens. With one exception, they’ve all occurred on Saturday nights. He thinks about sending it to Sam but refrains.

“Maybe the asshole just likes to party,” he mutters and peeks out the garage window when he hears a car pull up. He watches a family climb out and ducks out of view.

He avoids the house as the rest of the guests arrive over a span of about forty-five minutes. He loads the trunk with his weapons and what salt he scraped from the kitchen, throws in a paper map in case his phone dies or doesn’t get reception in New Jersey. When the coast is clear, he steals upstairs and packs an extra pair of jeans, socks, and a shirt in a black duffel bag Cas left for him on the bed.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, shouldering it at the kitchen door. Cas’s mouth forms a hard, unhappy line. He’s obviously trying hard not to frown but manages to nod.

“Don’t forget to text Sam,” he says.

“Already done,” Dean tells him. “Told him maybe next week.”

“I see.”

Cas’s jaw is tight. Dean wonders how they usually say goodbye, if he gives Cas a kiss or if they’ve developed some kind of ritual. Cas looks hurt, but he remains on the opposite side of the kitchen island.

“Have a good trip,” he offers. “Let me know you get in.”

“Later,” Dean says and pushes the door open. He doesn’t look back at Cas, crushing an insect that lands on the doorframe with his thumb. “Don’t wait up.”

+

Baby purrs as they emerge from the garage. He hops out to close the door and pats her trunk.

“Alright,” he tells her meaningfully, “second star to the right, straight on ‘til Jersey.”

Night driving has always been Dean’s preference: just him and the road, those seemingly endless highways that stretch across the states. Baby translates their surface to him through bumps and rattles. It’s a form of intimacy, touching the road that way, trusting what Baby tells him. She narrates their trip from Vermont down into Poughkeepsie (he texts Sam for a laugh) where Dean stops to take a leak. A couple hours later, they’re near Edison. His eyes are heavy, so he buys a cup of coffee at a gas station (it tastes like shit compared to the stuff Cas has been brewing, but hey— _coffee_ ) and cranks up the stereo.

He belts out the lyrics because he’s alone in the car. It helps keep him awake. The coffee leaves a bad taste in his mouth that he can’t get rid of, no matter how many times he scrapes his tongue across his teeth. He grabs a pack of gum when he stops for another coffee and gas around 5a.m. The gas station is half pumps, half outlets, and there’s no self-service. Freakin’ Jersey. The attendant comments that he hasn’t seen a car like Dean’s in a long time.

“Didn’t convert it, huh?” he asks and slides Dean his change.

“No way,” Dean answers.

“D’you want your receipt?”

“Sure,” Dean says, baffled when the attendant motions for Dean’s phone. He waves it near the register.

“Have a good one,” the man offers and passes it back to him.

The sun comes up a little before seven. He rolls into Chatsworth right around breakfast time. Kate lives on a wooded lot on the outskirts of town. Dean drives past her house the first time and has to turn around in the parking lot of a convenience store. He double checks the address, then pounds on the door with a fist., yawning generously. There’s a click and slide of the lock, and then a young woman, maybe 30 years old with reddish-brown hair and a freckled nose, is giving him a once over.

“Is Castiel super pissed?” she asks and pushes the door open fully. She’s got on jeans and flip-flops, no bra, just a gray tank top. She turns and walks back into the house.

“Probably,” Dean answers, setting down his bag next to a pile of shoes and letting the door close behind him.

“Put your stuff anywhere,” she directs from a tan leather sofa. She’s got her feet propped up on the edge of a black coffee table and is nursing a cup of something. “Hot chocolate,” she says like she can read his mind. Crap. Maybe she can. “Want a cup?”

“I’m good,” he says automatically, throwing his jacket over the back of an armchair. Kate pats the seat beside her, so Dean yawns and sinks onto the couch.

“Long car ride, old man?” Kate teases.

Dean glares at her. “I’m not old,” he insists.

“Okay, fine. _Middle-aged_ man.”

“Are you even old enough to vote?” Dean counters.

“You’re on fire today,” Kate says flatly.

She waves a hand over the papers she’s got spread out across the table. He spots the words “jersey” and “devil” and groans a little.

“The local history on this thing’s all over the place,” she says, “but the one detail all the stories have in common is that this was a curse.”

“Mother cursed the baby, right?”

“Supposedly,” Kate answers. “Deadbeat husband, thirteen kids...can you blame her? I mean, we don’t have any first-hand witnesses to interview. This was in the eighteenth century.”

“Everything I’ve read about the Jersey Devil talks about hooves, wings, sounds on the roof. Why’s it switching tactics?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admits. “Have you always been exactly like you are right now? Sam said you used to be pretty reckless.”

“I was just doing my job,” he defends.

“Speaking of,” she says and points a toe toward a news story on her tablet. “There’s a prom tonight, last one in the area. My money’s on it being there.”

“You conned me down here to be your prom date?” Dean asks, half serious.

“No,” she scoffs. “This thing was cursed in its body, which means it’s got to _vacate_ the body if it’s going to take over another one for the night.”

“You want to go trudging through the woods on the off-chance we come across the body of a cursed guy, so we can wait until he gets back, then jump him?”

“It’s kind of a shame,” she says thoughtfully. “Thing’s a legend.”

They fall silent until Dean’s phone beeps. It’s a message from Cas asking if he’s arrived in New Jersey.

“It’s cute how he worries about you,” Kate says fondly.

“I dunno if ‘cute’ is the right word for it,” Dean mumbles and sends a short reply. Kate is looking at him over the rim of her mug, clearly trying not to laugh.

“So how’d you get into hunting?” he asks to change the subject. Her expression drops abruptly, sliding first into confusion, then a look of understanding.

“You lose your memories again?” she asks.

“Uh,” Dean says and rubs his neck. “Yeah.”

“You guys helped me out about eight years ago.”

“Possession?” he guesses.

“Haunting,” she corrects. “My brother. You guys took care of it. I’d pretty much burned all my bridges by that point, and Sam said I had a knack for this stuff, asked if I wanted to get into the business.”

“You and Sam are close?”

She shrugs and sets down her mug. “He writes about me sometimes, and we email.”

“Sorry about your brother,” Dean offers.

She trails a finger along the seam that runs down the outside of her thigh. “I didn’t want to vanquish him,” she says thoughtfully. “My sister’s the one that called you. See, he and I lived here. He...” She presses a hand to her mouth and seems to mull over her words.

“He wanted you to kill yourself?”

“No,” she says and folds her arms over her chest. “It wasn’t like that. I know it sounds crazy, but I was happy being with him, even though he was dead.”

“How’d he die?”

“Car accident.” Kate bites her lower lip and exhales. She looks down the hall, then away. “So, I made up the guest room in case you want to get a couple hours before tonight. Guessing you drove straight through.”

He lets the change of topic slide. “Yeah.”

“You sleep,” she says, gesturing to the hallway. “I’ve got a few things I need to take care of.”

+

The mattress has creaky springs and too much give, but he’s asleep fully clothed within seconds, boots on the floor. He dreams of Cas sitting at his bedside in the bunker, combing his fingers through Dean’s hair. It might not be a dream at all. Maybe it’s a memory he’s repressed that is resurfacing.

It’s been years since anyone touched Dean like this: reverently, expecting nothing in return. He leans into it, into Cas’s fingers that map his scalp, his forehead, his cheek, the outline of his lips. Dean draws in a quick breath when Cas presses his thumbprint against Dean’s mouth. He should tell Cas to stop, but if this is the start of his memories returning, he has to allow it. The dream continues unchecked, and Cas’s hand stills as his lips alight on Dean’s temple.

They lie together in the dark. Cas is a solid, reassuring presence at his side. His hand rests over Dean’s heart and they nip at each other quietly and softly.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs. His voice is a signpost along a dark road. Dean walks it alone.

He startles awake at the sound of a door creaking open. When he rubs his eyes, he’s surprised to find they’re wet.

“It’s 4:00,” Kate says. “I’m going to order pizza for dinner, then we can head out. Pepperoni okay?”

“Fine,” Dean mutters into his pillow. He squints against the fractured sunlight through the blinds. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

“There are clean towels under the sink,” she says.

“Alright,” he says, keeping his back to the door. “I’ll be right out. I’ve got cash in my wallet.” What a foreign thing to say.

“It’s on me,” she says as she closes the door. “You drove all this way.”

Kate’s water pressure isn’t as good as the bunker’s or even the shower at the B&B, but it’s far from the worst shower he’s ever used. As he soaps his body, he allows himself the fantasy that the hands moving across his chest belong to Cas. Cas’s hands clean his arms, his stomach, sweep over his dick. He finds himself wishing Cas were here. He mouths Cas’s name into the spray, then forces his eyes open and scrubs his forearms raw as penance.

+

“I fucking hate wind,” Kate mutters into her beer. The bar’s a dive, but the beer is cheap. The seats are held together with duct tape and Dean’s pretty sure he just witnessed a drug deal go down at the urinal. “I literally needed ten more seconds.”

“We’ll get it next time,” Dean promises and rubs his shoulder from where he hit the ground. “Hunts don’t always go the way you plan.”

“That ever happen to you before?”

“More times than I’d like to admit” he confides. “Wind, rain, leaky pipe, plain carelessness.” He fleetingly thinks of Abaddon and a devil’s trap carved into a bullet, groans at the memory. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“I guess,” she says glumly. “Are you going straight back?”

“I should,” he says, “unless you’ve got a name we can summon. It won’t pull this again until next week, right? You got another case you’re working on?”

“I was going to check out a haunting,” she says. “Wanna tag along?”

“When?”

“Tomorrow?” she suggests. “Maybe I’ll get one thing accomplished this weekend.”

“What’s the story?” He leans back in his chair and glances around them, but no one seems to be paying them any mind.

“This lady called me. It’s a new house, so of course she was surprised there was activity.”

“They always are.”

“I think it might be residual, it’s just an apparition in an upstairs window, but she seemed pretty freaked out. I told her I’d stop by.”

“How far?”

“Not an hour. We could go now, but I didn’t give her a head’s up.”

“We can do recon tonight, talk to her in the morning. You tired?” Dean asks, swigging the rest of his beer.

“Not really.”

“Good.” He slams the bottle down and wipes his mouth. “Let’s go.”

“Cas isn’t going to be mad, is he?” she asks, sliding a fistful of dollars to the bartender as a tip. She smiles her thanks.

“Cas is _fine_ ,” Dean grunts and holds the door for her. They stop back by the house so Kate can grab her case notes, then drive south for about forty minutes. It’s a little before two in the morning when they pull into the driveway. It’s paved, the house a modest but well-landscaped two story. It isn’t part of a development, situated sideways on a wide, wooded lot.

“I’m going to text her that we’re outside so she doesn’t get suspicious.”

“She probably didn’t even hear us roll up,” Dean protests, but Kate already has her phone out.

“Which window?” Dean asks.

“Far right,” she says, pointing to a dormer window. “It’s her daughter’s room.”

“Ghost ever hurt the kids?”

“Not so far,” Kate answers, slouching low in the seat, scooting forward so her knees almost touch the dash.

“You’re gonna fall asleep like that,” Dean warns her.

“Bet I can outlast you,” she challenges.

She does, because she shakes Dean awake and punches him in the arm for good measure.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” she says. “Look.”

The window is no longer dark. It’s emitting a milky blue glow that’s got Dean reaching for the rifle. At the same time, his phone chimes.

“It’s your husband,” Kate says, glancing at the phone on the seat between them. Dean flinches at the term.

“He can wait,” Dean mutters, though he feels like a dick. He doesn’t take his eyes from the window. The light congeals, forming a luminous mass that resembles a human more and more by the second: a head takes shape, a shoulder, a narrowed waist.

“Clothing looks old,” Dean says, picking up the binoculars. “Some kinda dress, high collar.”

“This whole area dates back to the whaling industry,” Kate supplies, “about four hundred years.”

“Could be linked to an artifact. She have any problems before moving here?”

“Nothing she told me. Your phone’s blinking.”

“It’s just Cas,” Dean says dismissively. “How old’s the house?”

“They closed about ten months ago. They’re the first owners.”

“When did the sightings start, when they moved in?”

“No,” Kate says, flipping through her notes. She reads them in the light from her phone. “Last summer, August.”

“Definitely something that was introduced,” Dean says. “Sure I can’t go bang on the door?”

“Only if it turns violent,” she insists. “I don’t want to get a reputation of barging in on people in the middle of the night. I do _live_ here.”

“Downside of being stationary,” Dean comments with a shake of his head. “People know your real name.”

“Your way sounds harder. Sam says you practically grew up on the road with your dad.”

“Yup,” Dean confirms. “Man taught me just about everything I know.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she scolds. She lifts her camera and takes a photograph of the figure in the window, then another. “How’d you manage to meet Cas like that?”

“What’s with the Q&A?”

“Killing time,” she answers with a shrug. “I’ve known you for years, but we never talk personal stuff.”

Dean runs his left hand over his mouth. He pauses when the ring touches his lips, breathes out against it. “Cas and me, we worked together.”

“He doesn’t seem like a hunter.”

“He’s not,” Dean responds but doesn’t offer more information. Kate settles back with a disappointed sigh and brings up the photo she just took.

“I’m emailing this to Sam,” she says.

“You send him all your stuff?” Dean asks, casting her a sideways glance. He leans forward over the steering wheel, resting his arms against it.

“Anything worth blogging.”

Dean’s phone vibrates on the seat. He ignores it.

“It’s your brother,” Kate reports.

“What’re you, my secretary?”

“You could use one,” she counters. “Sam sent me a picture of your office a couple months ago. Do you file _anything_?”

“How ’bout you file things, you...filer.” He frowns at himself as she snorts.

The phone vibrates again.

“Shouldn’t Sam be asleep?” Dean asks with irritation. “Who’s up at this hour?”

“I probably woke him up with my email.”

“Then _you_ talk to him,” Dean orders and watches as the figure in the window sways ever so slightly on phantom feet. In the old days, he and Sam would’ve busted in the front door no matter what time it was. He can’t believe he’s got to sit on his ass for five more hours. He could practically be back in Vermont by then or at least crashed out comfortably at Kate’s house.

“Hey, Sam,” Kate says into Dean’s phone. Sam’s voice is audible but indecipherable through the phone’s speaker. “Good. Yeah, he’s right here. Hang on.”

She thrusts the phone in his face.

“It’s for you,” she says blithely. He sighs and holds it to his ear.

“What?” he bites out.

“You blew me off to go _hunting_?” Sam barks.

“It sounded important,” Dean defends. He knows it’s thin, but maybe Sammy’ll buy it. “And I thought it might help,” he adds.

“Avoiding the truth is not going to make it go away, Dean.”

“It’s worked in the past,” he mutters.

“That’s healthy. Listen, would you call Cas?” Sam demands. “He’s worried.”

“About what?”

“About you, jerk. He says you won’t call him.”

“He knows where I am,” Dean says. Sam exhales through his teeth.

“I am asking _you_ , as a favor to _me_ , to give him a call,” he grinds out.

“He’s probably asleep.”

“Call him, Dean, or I swear I’ll—”

“Okay, fine,” Dean concedes just to shut Sam up. “I’ll call him in the morning, alright? Did you look at the photo Kate sent, or did you jump right into attack dog?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Sam says, his voice evening out. He clears his throat. “It photographed pretty clearly. Energy’s really strong. Whatever’s powering it is probably nearby.”

“Just a simple burn job,” Dean concludes. “Sorry for waking you.”

“I was up,” Sam says. “John had a nightmare. Let me know you get home okay.”

“Will do.”

“And don’t forget to call Ca—”

Dean hangs up and drops the phone back onto the seat.

“I’ve seen enough,” he tells Kate. “Wake me if anything interesting happens, otherwise I’ll see you bright and early for the roasting.”

The phone blinks with another unread message.

+

Kate slams him in the ribs with an elbow to wake him.

“They’re up,” she says impenitently and rummages through her bag, emerging with a pack of gum. She pops one piece in her mouth and offers one to Dean, who grimaces at the cinnamon flavor.

“You just slept in a car,” she reminds him. They brush the wrinkles from their clothes, and Kate knocks on the door with a fist.

Alison has laid out coffee and a half-eaten box of donuts.

“You don’t need to feed us,” Kate assures her as Dean helps himself to a stale powdered donut he dunks in his coffee.

“But thanks,” he says with a bright grin.

“Sorry for dropping in unannounced,” Kate continues, “but we were in the area last night and thought we’d see if we could get footage.”

Alison peeks into the living room, where a small child is playing with dinosaur toys on the floor. She smashes them together and makes roaring sounds.

“Did you find anything?” Alison asks, looking back to Kate, then Dean, square in the eye.

“Well, you’re not crazy,” Dean declares.

“So you saw it!” Alison exclaims, clearly relieved. “My husband thinks I’m nuts.”

“He hasn’t seen anything?” Dean asks.

“We’re separated,” Alison says. “He doesn’t live here, but we’re on good terms. He helped me move in, so I told him what I’ve been seeing. He thinks I’m overly tired, just stressed.”

“Those can both make you more susceptible to the paranormal,” Kate says, holding up a palm-sized device that Dean recognizes as a EMF detector. It’s the smallest he’s seen in the field, so he nonchalantly sidles up next to Kate and tries to get a better look.

“We think the haunting might be tied to an object,” Dean says, squinting at the readings. The dial’s on zero and doesn’t move. “Is there anything you bought around the time the hauntings started?”

“No,” Allison says emphatically. “It’s all things we owned before.”

“Anything you dig up in the yard?" Dean prompts. “An object, piece of metal?”

“Just weeds.”

“Can we see the room?” Kate asks.

“Of course,” Alison agrees. She speaks to the child. “Zoe, I’m going to take these people upstairs. I want you to keep playing.”

“Okay,” Zoe mumbles shyly. It makes Dean think of Ben, how he could be upbeat and confident under the right circumstances, but would regress to a scared kid almost instantly if he and Lisa started to argue. Ben would be in his twenties by now. Dean wonders what he’s doing, if he’s in college. He clenches his jaw until Ben’s face fades.

Alison leads them up the stairs to a small bedroom with a low toddler’s bed and a floor littered with toys.

“She’s been sleeping with me,” Alison explains, bending to clear a path. “We’ve been using this as a playroom, since I’ve never seen anything during the day.”

The room is painted a cheerful robin’s egg blue. Above the bed in large, white block letters is Z O E. the furniture isn’t more than a year or two old, decorations sparse and minimalist. Kate runs the EMF reader over the walls and is shaking her head when Dean spots a small, framed object beside the closet. It looks out of place in the room, the sort of ugly thing you banish to storage.

“What’s that?” he asks, jutting a thumb at it.

“Oh,” Alison says and heaves a breath. “Zoe’s grandmother likes antiques. She bought it a few months ago for her fourth birthday. It’s not my taste, but I feel bad not displaying it.”

“What is it, anyway?” Kate asks. When she sweeps the EMF detector over it, it lights up like a five-alarm fire. “Looks like lace.”

“I’m not sure,” Alison says. "She says it’s about a hundred years old.”

“Any chance she gave you this around the time the activity started?”

“Within a few weeks, maybe.”

"Send a picture of this to Sam,” Dean instructs. Kate does, and within five minutes, Sam is on the phone.

“No wonder—it’s a hairwork wreath,” he tells them. “It was popular to make keepsakes out of human hair during the nineteenth century. I have a theory that keratin traps spirit energy.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alison says, grimacing at it.

“You got a fireplace?” Dean asks and flips open a lighter.

Of course it couldn’t be that easy. The blow comes from behind. He stumbles and drops his phone, catches himself on the bedpost. He brings a hand to the base of his skull. It’s wet; frigging head wounds bleed like a stuck pig. Alison screams as the figure manifests in the doorway, blocking their escape, its transparent eyes flashing. It reaches for him and hisses.

“Bite me," Dean spits back and blasts the bitch with rock salt. The spirit deconstructs into turbulent curls of white energy.

"Burn that thing,” he grits out and points to the frame, tossing Kate the lighter before pouring a circle around the spirit where it hovers incorporeal.

“Where?” Kate calls, grabbing Alison’s arm and tugging her through the door before the spirit has a chance to reform.

“Bathroom—tub or sink,” Dean says, removing his coat and pressing it to the wound. “Get your daughter outside,” he says to Alison, stumbling to his feet and approaching the spirit. “I’ll hold it off.”

Alison backs away and out of sight; he hears her footsteps thunder down the stairs. The spirit swirls and regains strength, advancing with outstretched hands. It’s stopped by the haphazard circle and shrieks at Dean, who keeps the rifle trained on it.

“Any time, Kate!” he yells.

“I can’t get the frame off!” she calls back.

“Break it,” he shouts.

There’s the sound of breaking glass before Kate yells, “Fire in the hole!” and the spirit writhes in flames for a few seconds, then burns out. Dean sighs, relieved, and feels his head again. The bleeding has slowed, but the back of his coat is soaked through. If it’s ruined, he’s gonna be pissed.

“Sorry about your carpet,” Dean says later in the kitchen, as Alison is handing him a cold compress. “And thanks.

“Believe me, it’s fine,” she says and lifts Zoe in her arms, pigtails swinging. “A little salt never hurt anyone.”

+

“You should get that looked at,” Kate says through the car window. She points to the place where his hair is matted down with blood. “Sure you don’t want to shower before you leave?”

“I’m good,” he says and starts the engine.

“Thanks again,” Kate says, straightening. “Sorry our main objective was a bust.”

“Maybe next time.”

“I’ll send you the pictures from last night,” she says. “See you.”

“Later.” He grins and backs out of the driveway to begin the seven-hour trek back to Vermont.

The solitude gives him too much time to think, and all he thinks about is Cas, the string of messages he hasn’t read, the heat of his mouth, deep rattle of his voice. Cas is probably worried, probably angry—Dean should’ve called before he left, but his phone’s been dead for two hours.

Why can’t he stop thinking about this? Getting out of Dodge for a few days was supposed to clear his head, not ramp up his fixation. He cranks up the volume on the stereo to drown out his own thoughts and rolls down his window.

It’s high sixties and sunny, the perfect weather for driving. He makes good time, stops for fuel a couple of times. It’s just past dinnertime when he reaches the outskirts of Jericho. Despite the pounding in his head and the fact that he’s half starved except for a donut and a pretty sub-par slice of apple pie he grabbed outside Albany, he’s in a great mood when he parks and closes the garage. But one look at the house and it shuts down, like a layer of fog descending.

The kitchen is clear—he can’t see Cas through the window—so Dean sneaks into the house and goes upstairs. He sets to spelunking underneath the sink for a bottle of peroxide. He finds it and an old washcloth that he uses to clean away some of the blood. Why are spirits always angry? The water swirls pink down the drain. He’s attempting to see the extent of the cut using a handheld mirror when he notices Cas standing in the open doorway.

He’s pissed. Dean can tell from the way his arms are straight at his sides; they end in tightly clenched fists. He’s seething, taking long, calculated breaths.

“What?” Dean snaps, though he’s relieved to see him, hates the flutter in his stomach.

“You didn’t call me,” Cas accuses.

“It’s not like you coulda flapped your wings and healed me."

“You think this is about your _injuries_?” Cas snarls. He encroaches on Dean’s personal space, crowding him up against the sink. Cas’s breath is hot against his neck. Their eyes lock in the mirror.

“Then what _is_ it about?” Dean asks brazenly, wincing as the washcloth passes over a tender spot.

“Communication,” Cas answers, taking the cloth from him, stepping back a comfortable distance. “Peace of mind. I had to find out from Sam that you were staying in New Jersey another day.”

Dean tries to shoot him a caustic look, but Cas begins cleaning Dean’s cut expertly. His touch is gentle, even though the peroxide stings and makes Dean hiss in protest. He drums his fingers on the counter to distract himself but lets Cas work.

“Relax,” Dean says, craning his neck down to give Cas better access. “She was working on another case, so I stayed. No big deal.”

“I understand that,” Cas says darkly, “but that does not excuse the lack of respect you showed me.”

Dean feels like a world-class asshole, but he doesn’t apologize. He grits his teeth and wishes he could summon a bottle of whiskey while Cas finishes cleaning the cut and helps Dean out of his jacket. He examines the collar.

“Maybe lemon oil,” he says, half to himself, fingering the leather. He folds the jacket over his arm and stares Dean down, unrelenting.

“I’m getting in the shower,” Dean mutters and doesn’t care when Cas drops the cloth in the sink and storms out.

The shower is unsatisfying, despite the great water pressure and stupid glycerin soap with a fancy name and luxurious lather. Who wants to smell like a bonfire? Not Dean, he thinks with conviction and dries himself with an irritatingly soft towel.

Cas isn’t in the living room or bedroom when Dean gets out of the shower, so he dries off and dresses without rushing. Something smells mouthwatering—garlic bread, maybe. He follows his nose downstairs. There’s a single place setting on the counter and a bowl of pasta tossed with ribbons of basil and tomato. It sits beside a bowl of breadsticks.

He stares at the offering of food with the knowledge that if the situation were reversed, he probably would’ve tossed everything out of spite, thrown the breadsticks out for the birds. He wouldn’t leave Cas a plate, let alone a warm bowl of pasta.

He scoops a generous mound onto a plate and digs in with both elbows on the counter. It’s pretty good; he swallows without chewing thoroughly. He eats two helpings and puts his plate in the sink before digging out a beer and heading out to the garage.

Baby welcomes him with the familiar creak of her leather seats. He’s just spent seven hours behind her wheel, but she provides a solitude he’s never known anywhere else. He turns they key so the stereo powers on but not enough to start the engine. The music drowns out the sounds beyond the garage, and for a time, he’s back on the road with Sammy. They grew up in this car. She’s home.

He’s not being fair to Cas. This isn’t his fault, and he has every right to be pissed off. Even if they weren’t together in this reality, Cas would worry about Dean, just like Dean always worries about Cas. He thinks of the days he spent panicking, pacing the bunker while Cas was in transit from Indiana to Kansas, how strung out he was when a freshly human Cas didn’t call for a day, two, three. He thinks of the angel killings, practically wearing Sam’s ear off worrying over Cas, burning the tread off Baby’s tires traversing the country on a wild-angel chase. He thinks of Cas alone in Rexford.

He runs a hand over Baby’s steering wheel, traces the metal rims of each gauge behind the glass. He pops open the glove compartment—it’s not locked, for once—and picks through its contents. Yellowing, dog-eared maps; a handful of ketchup packets; spare rounds; a snapped pencil missing its eraser. There’s something wedged in the back. He pulls everything out and throws it on the seat, fishing out the balled-up plastic bag. It’s from a drugstore in Lebanon. He lets out a breath.

“No way," he mutters and unrolls it.

He fingers the travel-sized bottle of shampoo, bar of soap, blue toothbrush, and remembers standing in the aisle, fisting a toothbrush in each hand, staring at them like selecting a toothbrush for Cas was paramount to deciding whether to let an archangel wear him as a meat suit.

He’d stopped in for milk and eggs, stuck with a twenty-four hour drug store because it was past nine and the grocery stores were closed for the night. He grabbed a gallon of 2%—he wasn’t drinking skim, no matter what Sam said; that shit was like water—a carton of eggs, and some overpriced bacon. On his way to the checkout, he walked past a display advertising a two-for-one deal on some plaque-busting mouthwash that promised to whiten and also wash your car, and he thought of Cas: freshly human and banished from the bunker. He felt like shit about that, but it had been necessary. He’d never sacrifice Sam, but telling Cas to leave was one of the hardest things Dean had ever done, on a list that included one-on-one lessons in advanced torture in Hell and stopping the apocalypse.

Cas had no idea how to be human. Dean thought of him eating a burrito, rapt by its flavor and texture, hunger a new and frightening sensation. The guy barely knew how to use a shower; Sammy’d had to instruct him to use soap, show him how to lather it. Cas had stared at the bar in his hand with fascination.

A toothbrush. He was going to buy Cas a toothbrush. It wouldn’t make up for anything, but it was something he could do. The choices were numerous: medium or soft bristles, cup-shaped or diagonally patterned bristles, color-changing bristles that indicated the thing was headed for the trash.

In the end, he picked the simplest option: a blue and white toothbrush with a textured handle. Cas would like it. Since he was getting Cas a toothbrush, toothpaste was only logical, and it’s not like Cas knew he was supposed to buy himself things like shampoo or a razor or deodorant or soap. Dean hauled an armful of products up to the counter and cringed at the total, but he pictured how Cas’s face might look when he opened the bag, and forked over a credit card.

[ ](http://imgur.com/KpJ617p)

He kept the bag in the Impala, a _Sorry you’re human now, hope this helps it suck less_ care package. In the end, he’d been too chicken to give the bag to Cas after he tracked him down in Rexford, even after that long night they spent together, talking and stargazing. As the minutes ticked past, Dean felt more and more foolish for buying any of it, afraid that Cas would ask what it meant that he had, that Dean would be forced to put words to this thing inside of him that roared to life whenever he and Cas were in the same room. He shoved the bag to the back of the glove compartment, banished the feeling to a locked place in his brain. Cas fell asleep, and Dean ate burgers by himself. He never spoke about that bag to anyone.

Gabriel had been able to replicate a TV show’s universe fairly convincingly, and he still missed a critical and obvious detail like footwear. Even Sam doesn’t know about the bag of stuff. Dean’s tried never to think about it. The chance that an angel or a witch is aware the bag exists, even one powerful enough to create this universe, is negligible. He lets out a huff of laughter, but there’s no humor behind it. It’s relief mixed with resignation, a hard mass of it plummeting to the pit of his stomach.

This is real. This is really his life.

He surveys the litter on the seat beside him, then shoves it all back into the glove compartment with urgency. He shuts off the music, which is no longer reassuring, and palms his keys. It’s cool outside, but a gathering of moths flit around the garage light. He switches it off and lowers the door.

The upstairs lights are off. Cas has probably gone to sleep, and Kevin has left for the night. Dean prepares to sneak into the house quietly when he spots Cas sitting alone on the porch.

He appears small, curled in on himself, a lonely figure outlined in the yellow glow of the porch light. It makes Dean feel like shit to see Cas so forlorn, and to know he’s the cause of it. He rubs the back of his neck carefully and sighs, climbs the stairs and falls into the chair beside Cas.

“Hey,” he says.

Cas doesn’t look at him, just continues to rock himself slowly. The chair creaks and groans.

“I’m sorry,” Dean offers. “You’re right. I should’ve called you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Cas’s voice is strained. The anger from earlier is gone. In its place is exhaustion.

“Sammy’ll tell you it’s because I’m running away from my problems,” Dean says tiredly. He sets the beer on the railing.

“Is that what you’re doing?” Cas asks.

Dean doesn't answer, just drops his hands between his knees and loosely folds them together.

“I’ve lost my memories before, so I understand how jarring this must be for you every time,” Cas continues. His eyes are trained on the orchard. “But you have to stop blaming me for the way you’re feeling. I chose this. _You_ chose this, even though you can’t remember.”

Dean feels strangely punched in the gut. Cas continues slowly.

“You might not ever be able to love me the way you once did. I will accept that, but I won’t let you make me feel guilty for the last twelve years.”

“Cas..." Dean starts, but he has no idea what to say. He catches his head in his hands.

“I don’t want any of this without you,” Cas says resolutely.

“Fuck,” Dean swears. He picks up his chair and turns it so he’s facing Cas’s side, puts a hand on the armrest to still the rocking.

“I’m sorry,” he offers again. He gestures between them. “What you and me have here—I don’t want to take that from you, but I don’t know if I can be _that guy_.”

Cas angles his face toward Dean and lifts his eyes. They’re watery but hopeful.

“I don’t expect you to be anything but yourself,” he murmurs.

Dean isn’t quite sure what Cas means, but he says “Okay.”

There’s a light at the edge of the orchard, the split-second pulse of a firefly. He remembers catching them in jars with his mom, stuffed with leaves and a few drops of water. It makes him think of the framed picture of him and Cas upstairs, of how happy he looks in it. Beside him, Cas looks lost and human, a sharp contrast to the angel Dean first encountered in that barn.

He replays the dream he had the day before, the sensation of Cas’s hands on him, the tenderness he felt during the car ride home from the bar.

He remembers his suffering afterwards losing Castiel to the Leviathan: the steady diet of liquor and insomnia, the debilitating nightmares, hauling that coat from trunk to trunk in a string of stolen cars. He thinks of Purgatory, of embracing Castiel beside the river, beneath a gray sky crackling with thunder.

He conjures Daphne; he conjures April. He’d been jealous of them both for being something to Cas that he couldn’t.

He conjures Meg and then himself, kissing Cas in the upstairs bedroom. The firefly flickers green and goes out.

It’s not wrong. Inherently, he knows that. It’s just that he’s never done this before, hasn’t really wanted to with anyone else. Once he does, won’t that change things? Or is he being an idiot?

He’s felt something indescribable for Cas for years, almost since they met. Maybe—maybe he can just _try_. He’s hunted everything that can hunt a man and survived it all, survived the Mark. This is just a kiss.

He brings a hand to Cas’s face and hesitates before cupping his jaw. It’s strong and masculine. He stares at Cas’s mouth and licks his lips.

“Dean—” Cas says, but Dean hushes him.

“Shut up,” he whispers.

Cas makes a happy noise when Dean kisses him: lightly, experimentally. His heart is racing. He curls his fingers into Cas’s hair and opens his mouth a little, just enough to tease Cas into moving. Cas shifts in the rocking chair and places one hand on top of Dean’s, which still grips the armrest. The kisses are small, exploratory, and it’s nice, so Dean lightly touches Cas’s lower lip with his tongue. Cas’s fingers tighten on Dean’s wrist; he fists Cas’s hair and kisses him deeply, licking into his mouth. Cas tastes like beer and garlic, and he smells good, earthy.

Cas nips at his upper lip, so Dean responds in kind, pressing closer, as close as he can get over the armrest. Cas is leaning into him. Dean hasn’t kissed like this in years, excitement roiling in his stomach, underlain by an intense desire to pull Cas out of the chair, spread him out on the porch, crush their bodies together in the dark. The thought shocks him, so Dean rocks back an inch. They pant against each other’s lips.

“Are you alright?” Cas asks gently.

Dean is semi-hard and kissing Castiel, and the world isn’t actually ending. There’s no guess work. Cas is already his, if Dean wants him. He’s been Dean’s for years. With that knowledge forefront in his mind, Dean nods that he’s okay a few times while he catches his breath. His hands shake with nerves and adrenaline. Cas touches their foreheads together. Dean is simultaneously lighter and heavier, sick and ecstatic, so he kisses Cas again, and again, thoroughly, bringing both hands to Cas’s face and sliding back to stroke his ears, his neck, moaning quietly as the queasiness abates.

The kisses grow tender after that, shallow, with pauses between each movement where they hover, connected, exhaling into one another. Cas is smiling when he sits back and strokes the side of Dean’s face, whispers through kiss-bitten lips: “We should go to bed.”

It’s got to be after midnight by now. The alarm will go off in a few hours, but Dean is afraid to move, worried that if he does, maybe this won’t happen again; maybe he won’t be able to do this. But Cas stands and pulls Dean to his feet, keeping a tight hold on his hand as he opens the back door and they go inside, up the staircase, and kiss languidly against the refrigerator. Magnets dig into Dean’s shoulder blades as an image of them naked flashes through his mind, and it leaves him reeling. He can do this. He tries to insinuate a knee between Cas’s legs, grind into him, but Cas backs away again.

“We really should sleep,” he says. He sounds regretful.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees immediately, frustrated, not used to being rejected. He glances to the clock display on the coffee machine. It’s past one in the morning. “Okay,” he adds. He doesn’t like it when Cas steps away and gets a glass of water, drinks it in five swallows, and sets the glass on the counter. Dean remains standing against the fridge, panting. Cas moves to the couch and begins to unbutton his shirt; Dean’s eyes dart to the bedroom door, and he thinks of another night alone in a too-large bed.

Cas is stepping out of his pants when Dean walks toward him and reaches over the back of the couch for Cas’s pillow. He brings it to his chest, cocks his head toward the bedroom. Cas stills, but his mouth curves at each corner.

They go to bed quietly.

“How do we usually—?” Dean falters, pulling the sheet to his waist.

Cas is quiet for a moment, then whispers, “Turn away from me.” So Dean does, confused until Cas’s arms fold around him and draw him back against Cas’s chest. Their bodies touch along Dean’s entire back and legs. Cas is warm and kisses his neck, just at the hairline, careful to avoid the cut.

“Stop thinking,” he whispers. Dean wraps a hand around Cas’s wrist and holds on as he falls under.

[ ](http://imgur.com/xI7nEUO)

+

The road is dark. It’s always dark, and Dean walks because he has no other choice.

“Dean,” Cas calls to him, as he always calls. His voice is mournful, light years away.

“Where are you, man?” Dean shouts, but Cas doesn’t answer him.

+

He sleeps soundly, wakes curled into Cas’s side. He tells himself not to stress, even though he feels anxiety beat through every part of him. He lets sleep coax his eyes closed for a while longer, lightly tracing Cas’s arm, trying not to question why his body responds to Cas’s voice when he rolls over and whispers, “Good morning.” It does. Dean can either accept that or not, but there’s no point denying it.

Cas kisses him before he crawls out of bed, closed-mouthed and lazily. The shower starts. Dean stays in bed. Cas washes up and kisses Dean’s cheek, then heads downstairs. The scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts up the steps while Dean brushes his teeth.

He wanders down in a robe and bare feet and ends up cutting cold butter into sugar for scones, watching with a partly open mouth as Cas turns the dough onto a marble slab and kneads it lightly. It’s suddenly fascinating to watch Cas cook.

“D’you ever make pie?” Dean asks as Cas places the rounds on a cookie sheet in precise rows.

“Of course,” Cas says with a sly grin. “Why do you think we have an apple orchard?”

“That’s ours too?” Dean asks, whipping his head to look out the window.

“We rent the land to the farmer,” Cas says. “He provides me with all the apples I need.

He sets the cookie sheet in the oven and removes his apron.

“How's your head?”

Dean touches it gingerly. It’s tender but not as bad as he thought. “Sore,” he says.

“What are your plans today?” Cas asks. “Are you working?”

“Thought I might go through some pictures Kate took.”

“Alright,” Cas says and sets a timer, then begins washing the cutting board.

“It can wait,” Dean offers.

“It’s fine,” Cas says. The slab of marble is heavy and awkward in Cas’s hands. He rests it on the edge of the sink and holds it in place with one hand as he wipes it with the other. It slips a fraction, and although Cas catches it before it strikes the bottom of the sink and cracks, Dean’s off his chair offering another pair of hands.

“I have it,” Cas insists. It comes out defensively. Dean stands impotent at his side. Cas rinses the slab and lays it to dry, then shuts off the water. He leans forward against the sink but doesn’t look out the window.

His face is tilted down—maybe he’s staring at the drain or maybe his eyes are closed—but he stays stock-still, waiting. Dean splays a hand on his upper back, between his shoulder blades. He watches, fascinated, as Cas’s chin drops further to his chest and his breaths come faster.

Dean’s heart beats like a caged bird. He moves directly behind Cas, and slides the hand from his back to his waist, gently curling the other into his shirt. He exhales unsteadily and rests his chin on Cas’s shoulder.

This is new and frightening. Or maybe it isn’t new at all, and the pounding in his chest isn’t fear but relief. Cas feels right like this, in his nerdy tax accountant’s skin, fitted along Dean’s front. Why did he ever think he couldn’t do this? It’s Cas. It’s just Cas. Dean buries his face in the side of his neck and lets himself breathe in the smell of his skin.

After a while, Cas turns in his arms and takes Dean’s face. They kiss until the oven dings fourteen minutes later, and Cas pulls back with a guilty expression.

“They’ll burn,” he explains and removes the scones from the oven to cool. They’re golden brown and look like scones should, a little uneven and lumpy.

“They look good," Dean compliments.

“Yes,” Cas agrees, though he’s not looking at the scones.

+

Dean hovers around Cas like a satellite the rest of the morning, peering over his shoulder while Cas checks for reservations, kneeling beside him in the damp soil as they weed the vegetable garden.

“Isn’t there a spray you can get?” Dean asks as Cas grips a handful of grass and pulls it free from the ground. He shakes dirt from the roots; it tumbles onto their hands like dark snow.

“I’m tired of killing,” Cas says softly. Dean wants to point out the hypocrisy, because what Cas is doing technically _is_ killing, but he silently gathers the loose weeds in a small bucket. Cas spreads them on top of a compost pile, then bends to rake his fingers through the dark, rich earth spilling from the bin’s base.

“Last year, this was just leaves and dead plants, coffee grounds, food scraps.” Cas scoops a handful and holds it out for Dean to examine. “Now it will enrich the garden.”

When he stands, he smiles at Dean, who is giddy on the fresh air and Cas’s smile. With an inexplicable urgency, he kisses Cas right then in the garden, next to the compost bin, both of them with dirt crammed underneath their nails. They need showers. Cas smells like the outdoors and sunshine, and it’s good. It’s exciting.

The house is quiet. Cas says the guests have all driven over to the lake for the day and won’t be back for hours. There are no new check-ins tonight, and Kevin is handling turn downs.

Dean cards his fingers through Cas’s hair. They’re making out against the washing machine, and now that he’s letting himself, Dean can’t get enough of Cas under his hands. They’re stripped to the waist in a futile attempt at laundry, and Dean’s so hard it aches, but things haven’t gone any further than skin on skin.

This thing between them has been building for years, but they’ve skipped a lot of steps—well, from Dean’s point of view. Wedding bands notwithstanding, as far as he’s concerned, they’ve never even gone on a date. If they’re going to do this, they’re going to do it _right_. If this is the winning hand, then Dean’s all in.

“I wanna take you out,” he murmurs as soon as the thought crosses his mind.

“Where?” Cas asks breathlessly.

“Anywhere,” Dean pants into his mouth. “Say yes.”

“Yes,” Cas replies obediently.

“What’s good around here?” Dean asks, thrusting his hips forward experimentally.

“There’s a drive-in,” Cas suggests as his fingers tease along Dean’s waistband, then slip under.

Dean sucks in a gasp but manages to say, “Dinner and a movie,” then whimpers when Cas sucks a bruise onto his collarbone, just above the tattoo.

“Pants off,” Cas directs and adds them to the machine, then gathers cleaning supplies.

Dean tries to memorize the knobs of Cas’s spine while he arranges magazines in the front room after dusting, bent over the table. The action lands Dean slammed up against the front door.

“You are distracting,” Cas says directly into his ear in his low, gritty tone, the closest to angelic he’s sounded since Dean woke up here. Dean responds by wrapping his arms around Cas’s neck and shushing him with a tongue.

+

He goes for a run in the late afternoon while Cas showers and starts on tomorrow's breakfast. He runs through the orchard, keeping his head tucked close to his chest to avoid low-hanging branches. It’s cooler between the rows, hidden like a secret corridor, the air still and fragrant. There’s a constant rustle of leaves overhead as the wind stirs the branches.

When he reaches the far end of the orchard, he turns and follows the path back home. His leg muscles and lungs burn by the time he reaches the yard; he bends at the waist to catch his breath. Sweat soaks through the back of his shirt, down his neck. With a forearm, he wipes his face dry and stretches his arms overhead, lets the breeze cool him. The crotchety cat is waiting for him by the back door and twists around his ankles.

“Hey, Rotgut,” Dean says, testing out the nickname as he carefully sidesteps the cat. “I gotta grab a shower.”

Cas is on the phone in the living room. Dean mouths “shower” and peels off his wet clothes, leaving a trail behind that’s gone once he's clean and comes back to gather them up. He’s never liked other people taking care of him. That’s Dean’s role: he takes care of people, not the reverse. Lisa was the closest he let in, but he washed his own clothes and insisted on contributing to the bills as much as he could. He wasn't about to be beholden to her, especially when she had a kid to raise.

But Cas wants to take care of him, even though Dean’s been acting like an asshole. Cas wants him anyway. It’s humbling.

Dean paws through the closet looking for a shirt for tonight. In the end, he settles on a black v-neck and dark jeans. A jar of styling wax he digs out from beneath a bag of cotton balls gives his hair enough spike in the front that he temporarily forgets about the gray. He decides he doesn’t hate the glasses. They make him look distinguished. With a washcloth and a squirt of hand soap, he cleans the lenses and positions them on his face, gives himself a thoughtful once over. Not so bad for an older guy.

On the couch, Cas waits for him, sitting primly with his hands together on his lap. He’s got on a short-sleeved button down, unfastened at the throat. If he were a woman, Dean would say something about how he looks, but this is Cas.

“Uh,” he says awkwardly. “Nice shirt.”

Cas lights up. “You look nice as well,” he offers.

It’s less awkward after that. They take the Impala because Dean may be pushing fifty and married, but he’s still cool. Cas dials through the music selection—the iPod is blasphemy, but damn is it convenient. He settles on Led Zeppelin, and they roll along in comfortable silence. Dean has one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the car door. Cas leans his head out the window and hums along.

“They make frequent _Lord of the Rings_ references,” Cas observes. Dean shakes his head and holds in his laughter.

“I still can’t believe you know what _Lord of the Rings_ is.”

"I admit, I initially assumed it had to do with the horsemen,” Cas confides.

A laugh escapes Dean’s throat.

The drive-in is a thirty-minute ride from the house, situated in what Cas says is an abandoned campground. They pay $12 each and find a spot in the last row. Cas rolls down his window and touches his phone to a device resembling a speaker. Chatter from the commercial on screen fills the car.

“You’re kidding me,” Dean says. “We actually get decent sound at these things?”

“It works directly with my truck’s computer,” Cas says, “but you won’t upgrade the Impala.”

"She don’t need upgrading,” Dean defends.

Cas docks his phone, and they listen through the Impala’s speakers.

“I've never found this movie realistic,” Cas comments when Gozer appears in a refrigerator.

“Giant animated marshmallow man?” Dean guesses.

“Why would the bringer of the apocalypse allow humanity to choose the form of its destroyer?”

“Irony?” Dean suggests.

“I suppose,” Cas concedes. He slides over close enough that their arms and legs touch. Cas is leaning against him, rests a hand on Dean’s leg casually, like an afterthought, like it’s something he does every day. It probably is. Dean dislodges his arm from Cas’s weight and slings it over his shoulders. He feels kind of foolish doing it—what is this, high school?—but Cas settles against him, leaning their heads together.

Dean closes his eyes. He curls his fingers into Cas’s shoulder and begins slow strokes with his thumb. Outside, it grows dark before the movie is over, and even though they have no more privacy than they did when they first pulled in, the dark provides the illusion of intimacy. He catches Cas’s mouth mid-laugh and neither of them look at the screen again until the credits are over.

“Anyone tell you that you’re a good kisser?” Dean murmurs.

“Meg,” Cas answers truthfully.

Dean snorts. “You wanna grab dinner?”

“I want to stay like this, but we should eat.”

“How 'bout we eat, then resume current activities?”

“It’s a deal,” Cas agrees, so Dean starts the car.

They eat burgers in a diner for posterity. Cas’s lips shine with grease. Dean’s heart clenches oddly in his chest, so he clears his throat before he says something sentimental, frowns as he dredges a french fry in ketchup.

"I’ve been meaning to ask...” he starts.

Cas looks up expectantly.

“The Mark. How come it worked, getting rid of it? I didn’t transfer it.”

A smile plays along Cas's mouth. "You didn’t want it,” he says.

“Yes, I did,” Dean protests but Cas shakes his head.

“You accepted it and the responsibility that came with it, but you didn’t want it. Even when your soul was corrupted, you didn’t want to be evil. It was that choice that allowed you to return to humanity. You chose to receive the Mark, and you chose to let it go.”

Dean swallows the lump in his throat and lets his hand fall to his jacketed arm over the place where the Mark used to be. “Was I freaky looking as a demon?” he asks with a forced laugh.

“No,” Cas answers after a few seconds. “You looked remarkably the same.”

“You were shiny,” Dean says. It makes Cas glow.

“I wish I had possessed my own grace,” he says.

“Brighter?”

“Much. And larger. Much larger.”

He’ll never get to see Cas's true form. Cas is human now, so when they die, he’ll die human. The thought makes him angry. Dean breathes in deep and lets out a long breath.

Cas should never have chosen humanity. He should’ve let the other angels, shit, _find_ Cas grace somewhere. They’re angels. Hell, maybe there’s a grace factory up there cranking out the stuff. They should’ve at least _looked_ —

“Dean,” Cas says and reaches across the table to take his hand. Dean chokes down the initial wave of embarrassment—that’ll take some getting used to—and meets his eyes. “I am many millennia old,” Cas continues. His thumb travels the peaks of Dean’s knuckles. “I chose this.”

“You were a frigging angel. Why would you choose to be human?”

“Because you’re human.”

“Cas, I’m not...” Dean scrubs at his face.

“You are deserving of happiness,” Cas tells him with conviction. “I wish you would let yourself believe that.”

Cas orders a slice of cherry pie and a slice of apple, with whipped cream on both.

“It’s homemade,” he promises. He holds the first forkful to Dean’s lips, and although Dean feels like a child, he parts them and lets Cas slip the fork inside. It’s some of the best pie he’s ever eaten. He savors the buttery flake of the crust, the hot apple cinnamon filling. The whipped cream is actually _whipped_ freaking _cream_ , not from a can. It’s got soft peaks and a hint of vanilla. Cas smiles and serves himself the next bite. They eat both pieces that way, swapping tastes from the same fork. Dean's tongue swipes over the tines and he thinks about the same fork in Cas’s mouth, pressing against his tongue.

[ ](http://imgur.com/QAPdHYd)

They walk out to the car, holding hands loosely. Dean is aware that people stare at them occasionally. His cheeks grow hot; he keeps his face down but doesn’t release Cas’s hand. In return, Cas squeezes it three times, a code Dean interprets with stilled breath.

He holds it for several seconds, exhales softly, squeezes twice.

_I know._

Cas undoubtedly understands _Star Wars_ references now, even subtle ones, because he laughs. Dean unlocks the car and makes the last-minute decision to hold the door for Cas. They ride home in silence, without the accompanying stereo. It’s just the two of them and windows rolled down, the sounds of the road. Dean’s hand finds Cas’s leg easily, fits over his knee. Cas brings a hand to cover it. Dean’s practically choking on nerves by the time they pull into the garage and he switches off the engine. The car goes still under them; without the rumble of Baby’s engine, all that remains is Cas’s breathing, the rustle of his clothes as he unfastens his seatbelt and closes the small distance between them.

He unfastens Dean’s seatbelt and slips a hand inside his jacket. They're technically visible from the house, but there are no lights on inside the garage, and the Impala’s interior is dark. Dean lets his head fall backwards as Cas mouths his throat, pushes Dean’s jacket down his arms and off, throwing it into the back seat. They’re really going to do this, Dean thinks as Cas works Dean’s belt buckle open, unzips his fly. A tremor begins in Dean’s chest and arms; he brings his hands to Cas’s shoulders and squeezes as Cas pushes his jeans down past his hips, fingers the waistband of his boxers.

He meets Dean’s eyes, seeking his permission. Dean swallows hard but nods once and gasps helplessly when Cas touches him. Cas’s grip is strong and practiced; he pumps his hand in a slow, steady motion that has Dean arching into his hand within a minute.

Cas is still fully clothed. Dean settles a hand under his shirt, directly over his spine. Cas’s skin is hot and sweat-slicked. Dean presses hard into Cas’s back, coaxing him to lie between Dean's legs, so Cas’s hand is trapped between them. After a minute, Cas reaches for his shirt and removes it. Dean anxiously maps Cas’s bare chest and arms with his eyes, then his fingers, pulling him close and letting Cas rock into him.

They start out kissing, but the kisses morph into whispered pleas into each other’s mouths. The friction from Cas’s pants starts to hurt the more Dean thrusts up into him, so he stills his hips and fumbles with Cas’s zipper. He’s seen Cas naked, but to _feel_ him—

Dean moans when Cas settles against him, drops his forehead to Dean’s neck. He lets Dean set the pace with his hands positioned on Cas’s hips. They don’t say anything. The leather creaks under their motions; a wet suction noise at the small of Dean’s back where he sweats against the seat, and their skin makes obscene noises as they rub against each other.

His stomach hollows out; Cas puts a hand between them again and strokes until Dean is gasping obscenities into his mouth. Cas moves his hand for a few more seconds, until he grunts, and Dean feels a second pool of warmth on his stomach, and then Cas is wiping them both down with his shirt before laying his head on Dean’s chest. Dean becomes aware of his jeans bunched up around his ankles, the fact that they’re both wearing shoes, that Cas is shirtless but his pants are halfway down his thighs. He snorts and relaxes into the seat; it’s actually nice, having Cas’s weight on top of him. In his dazed, post-orgasmic state, Dean’s body craves sleep, but he fights a yawn and struggles to keep his eyes open.

“Probably shouldn’t sleep out here,” he says after a while, trailing his fingers down Cas’s back. Now that they’re lying still, he can hear the sounds of insects and wind, the rattle of Cas’s breathing. Cas nods against his shoulder. After a few seconds, he lifts his head, pushes up on his elbows so he looks down at Dean, smiling.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he admits. He looks happy. _God_ , he looks happy.

Dean thought he might feel strange afterward, intrinsically altered somehow, but he’s still Dean Winchester, and Cas is still a nerdy former angel. The only difference is that the sapping tension, which has lingered between them for years, is finally gone.

“We should do it again,” Dean suggests as Cas brushes the hair from his face. It’s matted with sweat at his hairline. “But upstairs, in bed, so we can fall asleep afterwards and not shock anyone in the morning.”

They do, with a brief wash-up afterwards, just a quick wipe-down with a damp cloth before folding into each other beneath the covers.

+

The sounds of the real world pierce Dean’s dreamscape, and the dark unpaved road he’s been walking toward nowhere in particular dissolves. Dean drifts into consciousness to the sound of Cas’s voice calling for him, an echo in his head. Cas isn’t holding him any longer, but he’s close by, breathing steadily.

Dean stretches his legs and turns his head toward the sound, cracks half-moon eyes to see Cas asleep beside him. He’s turned away from Dean, his shoulders uncovered, rising with each breath. Dean strokes the back of his hand down the impression of Cas’s spine, brushes along each shoulder blade, where his wings might have been.

Turning his hand over, he grips Cas’s shoulder gently and rocks him back against Dean’s chest. Cas sleepily paws at Dean’s hand and pulls it fully over his side, so Dean is holding him. The sun isn’t up yet, the outside streaked with shadows. There’s still time to sleep. Dean presses his forehead into Cas’s neck.

He smiles as Cas continues to breathe quietly in his arms, but he doesn’t fall back asleep, struck by the reality of Cas lying next to him, of how profoundly _not weird_ this is. They lie still for an hour. He knows Cas is awake when he lolls his head backwards and squeezes Dean’s hand, tracing his fingers along the lines that criss-cross Dean’s palm.

“Hey,” Dean mouths against his ear. Cas’s body goes soft and kind of melts into him.

“Hello,” he says, voice sleep-roughened.

“Sleep okay?" Dean asks.

“I wish I didn’t have to get up,” Cas admits gravelly.

“So don’t.”

“I have to get breakfast in the oven.”

“Let ‘em eat cereal,” Dean suggests and catches Cas’s mouth with his.

“Kevin can handle things,” Cas says thoughtfully.

“Good.” Dean pins Cas’s arms over his head and noses his throat.

They stay in bed until 7:00am, when Kevin texts with a question about what the french toast of the day is, so he can make up the sign. Cas slips downstairs to preheat the oven and bake the dish he prepared yesterday afternoon. He comes back with coffee and a box of mini powdered donuts, which gets him a grin and not-so-mini-kisses in return. They eat them in bed, in spite of the crumbs.  


	4. Chapter 4

“You look good,” Sam says two steps out of the car, folding Dean into a hug.

“You ever gonna cut your hair?” Dean shoots back and ruffles it when Sam releases him. He focuses his attention on the woman—Susan, he reminds himself—opening the back seat of the station wagon (at least there aren’t honor student bumper stickers). Two kids scramble out and run toward him, hugging his waist.

“Hi, Uncle Dean!” John exclaims. He’s scrawny with a mop of hair like Sam’s, whose fondness for tight hugs is undoubtedly genetic.

“Hey, buddy,” Dean says and awkwardly pats his head, then Mary’s back. He casts a quick look to Sam and raises an eyebrow. Sam shakes his head. The kids don’t know about his memory loss.

“Uncle Cas!” Mary calls and releases Dean, wrapping around Cas like an octopus. She’s missing a front tooth. Cas smiles and hugs her in return.

“It’s nice to see you, Dean,” Susan offers, extending a hand. She smiles and winks.

“You too,” he says, and he wonders how many times they’ve met for the first time over the years. John peers up at Dean expectantly.

“Uh,” Dean says and pats John’s head again. “Anyone hungry?"

"Can Uncle Cas make grilled cheese?" John pleads.

“You’ll have to ask Uncle Cas,” Dean says. It feels strange to say that for the first time, but he likes it. Cas steps closer and settles a hand on his lower back.

“With or without tomatoes?” Cas asks, tilting his head to the side as he addresses John, who holds onto Dean's leg and swings.

“Without,” John says at the same time Mary chimes “with.”

Cas makes both. The adults dip theirs in soup, huddled around the kitchen island. John and Mary sit on the bar stools, eating with messy enthusiasm. Outside, it has begun to rain.

“Does this mean we can’t roast marshmallows?” Mary asks mournfully.

"We have the whole summer, kiddo,” Sam says.

She looks so downtrodden by the time the sky opens up and starts to pour that Dean takes pity on her.

“Do we have marshmallows?” he whispers to Cas, who indicates the pantry. Susan and Cas are talking about the best way to stake tomato plants; Sam is coaxing John to eat his crust.

“It’s just bread,” Sam says and takes a bite of it. “See? I ate mine.”

“You can eat mine too,” John offers.

Dean covers his laughter and locates a bag of jumbo marshmallows and a bag of wooden skewers right next to it. Whistling, he takes both bags to the counter and stands in front of the stove. Mary watches him raptly. He tears the bags open and skewers two marshmallows, turns on the gas to light the pilot. Cas takes notice, giving him a questioning look that quickly opens into understanding. He presses a kiss to Dean’s cheek; Dean flushes and works double time.

They eat stove-roasted marshmallows while the rain comes down, until they all groan with stomach aches from too much sugar. Susan waves off seconds; Sam eats six, to the delight of his kids. Kevin comes to snag one before afternoon check-ins begin. A couple is coming for a week-long honeymoon in room three. He uncovers a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries and takes it upstairs to their room.

“I didn’t know we had those,” Dean comments as they walk out of his life.

“Exactly,” Cas says knowingly and feeds him another marshmallow. Dean stealthily sucks Cas’s fingertip.

The rain finally stops a few hours later when they finish dinner, but it’s too muddy to play outside, so Sam puts on a movie for the kids. The four adults retire to the porch for a glass of wine while the sun sets, because Dean is a sophisticated married man who drinks wine. He sits up straight and mimics the way Sam swirls it in his glass like an afterthought, hums as if in appreciation of the flavor. He still hates wine, but he sucks it up and drinks it.

Sam and Susan sit on rockers; he and Cas tuck themselves onto the small built-in wooden bench along the railing. Cas rests a hand on Dean’s leg. Dean prepares for Sam to say something, maybe tease him a little, but he doesn’t. Sam has probably seen them touch so often that it’s a _lack_ of touching that would seem strange to him. So Dean doesn’t shake off Cas’s hand, though his eyes flit to it every so often, and he drinks. The wine is a sour, oaky flavor. He fights the urge to pucker on the third sip, opening his eyes wider in order to swallow.

“You hate it, don’t you,” Sam observes with a twitching mouth as Dean tries for another sip. “Go get a beer.”

“I’m switching to whiskey,” Dean declares, spitting the wine over the railing gratefully, and goes for the bottle.

“I’ll join you,” Susan calls after him, so he brings two glasses.

“Knew I liked you,” he says as he pours her a measure. She tips it back and grins for another.

"Sam’s driving,” she says. “One more won’t hurt.”

They laugh over Susan’s work antics, but she gets misty eyed when she tells them about a former patient, an old man who had once been a professional clown (Sam shivers appropriately). He used to send home balloon animals for John and Mary. He’d died the week before at ninety-four years old.

“He had a good life,” Sam says and pats her hand. He leaves it there, and they continue to rock.

“Maybe we should move up this way,” Susan says. “It’s so peaceful here.”

“There is a house down the street for sale,” Cas says helpfully. “We’re excellent neighbors.”

“Maybe in a few years, once the kids are done with school,” Sam muses, and Dean thinks he might be serious. He leans into Cas’s side. In response, Cas slides closer. His arm is warm and solid across Dean’s back, fingers curling around his side. Hesitantly, Dean shifts his weight so his leg touches Cas’s. He feels cocooned by him, held on all sides, and while it’s a foreign notion, he decides he approves.

Sam recounts a recent post he wrote about a case out of Tucson, Arizona: the ghost of a young boy that appeared in a teenager’s basement bedroom. He never harmed anyone, just manifested at the end of the bed and stood there, sometimes for several minutes. Even more than fifteen years later, the teenager-turned-man still can’t overcome the fear of being watched while he sleeps.

“I can relate,” Dean mutters, dropping a hand to Cas’s knee. He pats it twice, then lets it rest there, just for a bit, just to test it out. Sam chuckles.

“Cas was smitten,” he says.

“You appeared less troubled in sleep,” Cas admits to Dean. “I found it intriguing to watch you.”

Dean swallows and notices his heart beating a little faster, like a flutter. Once, he hated waking up to find Cas looming over him with his signature half-fierce, half-inquisitive stare. But over time, when it became clear that Cas wasn’t going to change his ways (just like he’d never quite understood what Dean meant by personal space), he’d grown used to it. It was just something Cas _did_. He came to tolerate that about him, if not exactly accept it. Maybe that was why after Dean returned from Purgatory, the visions of Cas haunted him unrelentingly at night, in vivid detail, because Dean expected to open his eyes and find Cas watching—only, he wasn’t there.

But Cas watched him with Sam from a safe distance outside the devil’s trap as Dean, strung out on Cas’s blood, sobbed alone on the concrete floor. Cas watched him hours later as he strained against the chains, syringe clattering to their feet, and held Dean in arms that weakened by the minute from his waning grace. Cas watched him as they lay on the floor, facing one another, tears tracking down both of their faces.

“Kill me,” Dean begged Cas, because he knew Sam would refuse. “Just fucking kill me.”

“No,” Cas told him, and they closed their eyes for a time.

And Cas watched him when Dean first opened human eyes again, and said, very quietly, “Hello, Dean."

Dean blinks to counter the sting in both eyes. “It’s ’cause I’m so good looking," he says to Cas.

“That’s romantic,” Susan says wistfully, tipping her glass in Dean’s direction. “And I don’t even like love stories.”

By the end of the night, Susan is laughing into her sleeve over Cas’s tale of trying to buy pie and pornography for Dean.

“I didn’t know about that,” Dean says and thinks of the twin bag shoved in the back of his glove compartment. He wonders where Cas’s ended up. His hand has migrated to Cas’s thigh, and he’s rubbing it right there in the open, in front of Sam and God and anyone else who might be watching.

It’s well past dark when Sam and Susan pack the car to leave. John is asleep on the couch upstairs with his mouth wide open; Mary is playing a game on her phone. Sam hugs Dean goodbye and then Cas; Susan shakes Dean’s hand and says, “We’ll have to do this again sometime. Soon.” From the way she squeezes his hand before releasing it, Dean knows it’s a genuine offer.

“Sammy hit the jackpot,” he says to Cas as they watch the car pull away. Cas hums his agreement. Sam flashes the headlights. Mary waves from the backseat. John’s sleepy goodbye rings in Dean’s ears. He and Cas stand in the driveway until the tail lights aren’t visible anymore.

The rain left the air cool and damp. The bugs aren’t out, except for a handful of fireflies that flicker in the garden and along the treeline. Dean inhales greedily and tugs Cas back up to the porch. They assume the rocking chairs. Dean plants a foot midway up a porch spindle and pushes off, causing the chair to rock dramatically. Cas looks like he might ask Dean to stop, but he raises a foot and does the same. He laughs, so Dean repeats it, and Cas repeats it, rocking their chairs dangerously close to the tipping point, laughing so hard Dean’s stomach hurts.

+

Dean’s perplexed when Cas tells him he should take up hunting again.

"I don’t mean as a full-time occupation,” Cas amends, holding up a hand when Dean opens his mouth. He’s folding egg whites into batter. “But Kate would benefit from your help, and it’s unrealistic to expect you to give up that lifestyle so quickly. It’s what you’re used to.”

If it had been anyone else to offer, Dean would think this is a test, but Cas doesn’t fully grasp human emotions, let alone mind games, even after a decade. Relative to the span of his existence, one decade’s a grain of sand on a never-ending beach.

"I’ll think about it,” Dean says in response as the idea ticks through his brain. He opens the oven when Cas asks.

Two days later, he’s packing a bag for Delaware at four in the morning.

“Mothman sightings,” Kate messaged him. That meant an impending disaster. “You in?”

“I’ll only be gone for a couple days,” Dean murmurs into Cas’s ear, bringing the covers up around his shoulders. Cas moves his head drowsily and kisses the air. Dean finds his mouth and hovers there for a while. “I’ll call you,” he whispers when he pulls away.

“I know,” Cas says with a faint grin. Dean feels a surge of something powerful in his chest, kisses Cas one more time. He grabs a handful of granola bars and a thermos of coffee from the kitchen on his way out.

It’s wild to have food on the way to a hunt, not split the last pack of beef jerky and a couple rogue peppermints from a family restaurant with Sam. He and Sammy have probably hit up every no-name diner in the US at least once. They should probably be in the Guinness Book for the diner record, possibly for fraud. But stolen pie is a small moral price to pay for saving the world.

Dean drives through the night, stopping to refuel and grab a coffee refill after four hours. It’s just past eight in the morning, and the sun is up. His ass is asleep. He stretches his arms while Baby’s tank fills, leans forward until his spine cracks. He grunts when it does and the soreness retreats.

It’s going to be a hot one. He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it into the back seat, retrieving his phone from the pocket. He stares at the image of Cas and John and Mary. Cas is probably brewing coffee right now or chatting with guests over french toast. He imagines Cas in the front room, leaning next to the mantle with his hands in his pockets while he answers questions about the area, and a smile takes over Dean’s mouth. He doesn’t force it down.

When Baby’s finished fueling, Dean goes inside for the coffee and texts his location to Kate. An oversized blueberry muffin catches his eye—he’s already gone through the granola bars—so he throws it onto the counter along with a pack of mints and a 20oz coffee with cream and triple sugar. The muffin is the typical pre-packaged, greasy variety. He chews it reluctantly and sends a grainy picture of it to Cas with the caption “doesn’t compare.” Cas is a dick and sends back a picture of the day’s french toast creation.

+

Dean meets up with Kate at a fast food joint in Delaware. She’s sitting on the hood of her car in sunglasses and cut-off jeans, eating a burger.

“Working on my tan,” she says and holds out an arm, turning it like it’s on display.

"I’ve seen ghosts with more color,” he tells her and points to the notebook beside her.

“Knock yourself out,” she says. “I’ve been studying the area’s infrastructure. The famous case was the bridge collapse in Point Pleasant, but I don’t think the Delaware Memorial is in any danger.”

“Pretty unlikely,” Dean says and flips through the notebook pages she has flagged.

“What do you think they are, anyway?”

“What, mothmen?”

“Yeah,” she says and wipes her mouth with a paper napkin before rolling it up with the sandwich wrapper and shoving the whole thing into a fast-food bag. “I used to wonder if they were angels, since they foreshadow disasters—that seems pretty benevolent, right?—but it’s not like they prevent them from happening.”

“I don’t think it’s angels,” Dean mutters, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the grin. He pokes a map Kate has used to mark the sightings. “Got any diagrams of the pipelines?”

They analyze them over milkshakes and handheld apple pie, then set out to interview the residents. They leave Kate’s car in the parking lot and take the Impala.

“There’s nothing wrong with an electric car,” she sniffs.

“Never said there was,” Dean tells her and steps on Baby's gas.

Residents describe the mothmen as tall, cloaked men; as silent, shadowy figures; as enormous owls with whisper-quiet wings. The only consistent detail is a pair of glowing red eyes. The witnesses aren’t afraid of the mothmen, per se, but a restless unease persists as they wait and wonder.

“There was that _movie_ ,” a woman with wild, curly hair whispers, leaning toward them like she thinks the mothmen might be listening in. “The one with Richard Gere. I like him. I’m sorry he’s not here.” She gives Dean a pitying look.

It’s pretty much how the rest of the day goes down: movie references, quips about avoiding the bridge into New Jersey for a few days. They knock on doors, examine the various locations of sightings. Kate finds a long, dark feather and holds it up with a smirk.

“Still sure it can’t be angels?” she says.

“Pretty sure,” he replies with dark amusement.

“Have you ever _met_ one?” she counters.

“Just a couple,” he says and seals the feather in an evidence bag. He holds it up. “These are handy. Where’d you get ’em?”

“Internet,” she says.

They grab fried chicken for dinner, then retrieve Kate’s car and meet in the parking lot of a motel. It claims to offer a free continental breakfast. Dean imagines the stale bagels and burned coffee and looks longingly at his long-empty thermos. A few weeks of domesticity and he’s spoiled.

“Just get one room,” Kate says as she rifles through the trunk for her bag. She shoulders it and presses a button to lock the car. “I’m short on cash.”

Dean gives her a questioning look, but Kate just rolls her eyes.

“Relax,” she says. “I’m not going to spoil your virtue. It’s just to sleep.”

They get a double with two queens. It’s a generic motel room: matching nightstands, a round wooden table with a forgettable lamp, textured wallpaper peeling at the seams. He slides open the nightstand drawer to check for the Gideon bible.

"I should call Cas,” he mumbles, half to himself, and touches the spine.

“I’m going to grab a shower, give you some privacy,” Kate announces and disappears into the bathroom.

Dean kicks off his boots, toes out of his socks, and folds himself onto the bed. He palms his phone, picks up the remote and flips through the channels aimlessly, tossing the phone lightly in his left hand. He hears the shower start, the slide of shower curtain rings across the metal rod.

“Call Cas,” he says.

The phone processes for a second and flashes up the picture of Cas on the beach. “Calling Castiel Winchester,” it reads. Dean smiles into his palm.

“Hello,” Cas answers after six rings. His voice is groggy but there’s a smile in it.

“Hey. Did I wake you up?”

“I dozed off on the couch,” Cas yawns. “How’s it going?”

“Interviewed the eye witnesses, checked out the locations. Sightings are definitely concentrated. I’m thinking they might be foreshadowing a water main break, maybe contamination of some kind. Question is, when?”

“Mothmen possess excellent foresight, but they have a limited concept of time. The event could be tomorrow; it might be several weeks from now.”

“You’ve met them?”

“Of course,” Cas says plainly.

“Awesome,” Dean replies. “Well, I'm not staying here for a month.”

“What about alerting the local media?” Cas suggests.

“They only cover this kind of thing as a sensationalist story.”

“It would still get the word out,” Cas says. “What mothmen predict typically cannot be prevented, but you might be able to curb fatalities.” Dean hears him adjust his position on the couch and settle back contentedly, exhaling. “Did you eat?”

“Chicken.”

“That’s good,” Cas says fondly.

“What did you do today?” Dean asks.

“I tried out a new recipe for pie crust, fertilized the tomato plants, and talked to a woman on the phone for an hour who was thinking of coming from Montana. She booked a stay in August.”

Dean chuckles and leans back against the headboard. “Glad she kept you company.”

“Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“Not sure yet, but I’ll let you know.”

“Alright,” Cas says.

They lapse into silence; Dean listens for the sound of Cas’s breathing, slow and even. The mattress under him is too narrow and too hard, but he shuts his eyes, imagines Cas stretched out beside him.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Don’t fall asleep on the couch again, okay? Go to bed.”

“I will,” Cas promises.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, catch you up.”

“Tell Kate hello.”

“Will do. Night.”

“Goodnight.”

Dean soaks in Cas’s voice as he lies awake, facing the wall. No one else has gotten to hear Cas like that, sleepy and quiet, affectionate. Not Meg, not April. Maybe Daphne—she and Emanuel were hitched for a couple months—but that wasn’t _Cas_. This belongs to Dean. A fierce pride wells up in him, and he spreads a hand over his heart, like it’ll keep the feeling from exploding out of his chest.

He snatches up the phone, just to glance at the time (a couple minutes past midnight) and ends up watching the moving photograph of Cas and John and Mary. Whenever the screen starts to dim, he taps it so it glows brightly again. After three times, Kate rolls over.

“Stop sexting your husband and go to sleep,” she mutters into her arm, “or I’ll salt and burn your phone.”

He lets the picture fade this time, but it replays behind his eyelids.

+

The next morning, the local news station sends them away with withering looks. Sam blogs about the sightings and cautions area residents to prepare for anything, but his followers are scattered across the globe. Kate alerts a handful of people she knows in the area, and emails a list of sightings and locations.

Dean books the room for another night after a quick phone call to Cas. On his way back from the manager’s office, he spots a figure across the dim parking lot. It’s a man in a long, dark coat. The collar is turned up, so it frames the man’s head in a sort-of frill. He doesn’t move, isn’t immediately threatening, but something about his presence causes Dean to zip his jacket to the throat and walk a step faster.

The figure never moves position, but it turns as Dean walks, so its front is always facing him. He’s seen enough in his lifetime to know when something’s not right; this thing is humanoid, but Dean’s not sure it’s human. When he reaches the door to his room, he goes inside for the shotgun, gripping it tightly in his hands.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asks, poking her head out of the bathroom. Her hair drips onto the carpet. Dean cocks the barrel and launches himself outside.

“You want a piece of me?” he yells. It echoes across the pavement.

The figure answers with an ominous stillness and opens red eyes.

“It’s one of them,” Kate murmurs over his shoulder. She’s wearing a towel wrapped around her body and no shoes. They stare at the figure, and the figures stares back. There is a rustle, like the wind, only the air doesn’t move. Dean blinks, and the figure is gone.

He walks to the place where it stood and finds no footprints, no traces of sulfur, just one long, dark feather—dark like the one they found yesterday. He pinches it with the sleeve of his jacket and brings it back to the room, placing it in an evidence bag. Kate wordlessly makes note of the location, date, and time while Dean goes to ask the manager if the security footage covers the parking lot. It doesn’t.

"I should’ve taken a picture,” Kate laments. She’s dressed, lying backwards on the bed, kicking the wall above the headboard. “Have you ever seen eyes like that?”

He thinks of the yellow-eyed demon, of his own doll-black eyes, of Cas’s luminescence. “Not like that,” he says.

They order a pizza, crash out on their respective beds and watch the news until they're both struggling to keep awake. Dean wakes up in the middle of the night, long enough to take off his glasses and text Cas that he’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.

They return the key to the front office first thing in the morning. Dean grabs coffee, watching with amusement as Kate pockets a bruised banana and cup of yogurt from the breakfast buffet, then cooks herself a waffle. He stacks bacon on a biscuit and drops crumbs in his lap as he and Baby speed up 95.

He pulls into their driveway a little after four. Three of the guest spaces are occupied. A couple sits on the front porch. They wave to him as he climbs out of the car. He waves back and goes in the back door. Cas is on the phone, held between his shoulder and his ear as he washes a paring knife. Dean stops in the doorway and watches him, crossing his arms over his chest. Cas lifts his head and meets Dean’s eyes, offering a smile in greeting. He lays the knife on a towel and shuts off the water, drying his hands.

Dean approaches slowly, crowds into him against the sink, and gently kisses the side of Cas’s neck.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Yes, we are open for Christmas,” Cas responds into the phone. He places a hand on Dean’s waist and squeezes, nodding even though the caller can’t see him. Dean feels the motion under his lips. “We sometimes offer one-night stays during the off season, but not on holidays, no.”

Cas’s neck smells like soap and laundry detergent. He must have shaved this morning; his skin is as smooth as Dean can remember. He mouths from below Cas’s ear to his throat, up to his jaw, and kisses over to his ear.

“Miss me?”

“Parking is one car per room,” Cas recites coolly, though he reaches his arm farther around Dean’s waist and tugs until their hips are flush, and Dean is standing between Cas’s legs. He takes it as a “yes.”

“All major credit cards,” Cas says. “The cancellation policy is on our website.”

Dean grinds forward and smirks when Cas’s breath hitches slightly.

“You too,” Cas says in closing. “Please call back if you have additional questions.”

Dean plucks the phone out of his hand and slides it across the counter, out of reach. He kisses Cas firmly on the mouth.

“I need a shower,” he announces. “Wanna come?”

“I'm about to serve iced tea on the porch.” Cas motions to a tray with a pitcher and glasses. He says against Dean’s lips, warmly: "Come with me.”

“So you can show off your good-looking husband?” Dean says, test driving the word.

“Yes,” Cas says honestly.

There’s something to be said for standing next to Cas on the front porch, talking with a couple from Ohio who are celebrating their twenty-year anniversary. Cas’s fingers trail up and down Dean’s back, respectably tease the edge of his shirt but never slide underneath. The couple asks how they met, and Cas replies, “Through work.”

“What did you do before this?” the woman asks.

Dean wonders how many times they’ve been asked this question as Cas answers without pause: “We were federal agents.” He says it with a gravity that implies there is more to say, but that he can’t. The woman makes an o-shaped face and nods conspiratorially into her glass. Her husband appears quietly impressed.

“Still playing the fed card, huh?” Dean remarks later, with his back against the shower tiles and Cas’s body suctioned to his front.

They’ve been in here for ages; the water is beginning to go cold. Dean should be in the garage, vacuuming the crumbs out of the Impala, but he can’t seem to pull away from Cas’s hands. Baby can wait.

“I bet you still have that badge I gave you,” he says as Cas’s fingers skim his sides.

“Mm,” Cas murmurs against his throat.

+

The Delaware River floods two days later. Dean sees the headline flash across the TV when they’re relaxing after breakfast has finished. It’s Tuesday morning; there are no check-ins until Thursday, and Dean has Cas to himself for the moment. But the story catches his eye and makes his stomach drop out. He reaches across Cas’s lap for his phone, abandoned on a side table with a half-drunk glass of juice. Kate is already blowing up his phone with messages. He calls her, and together they watch in stunned silence.

“Think this could be it?” she asks after a while.

“Maybe,” Dean says under his breath. Cas squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.

Dean keeps the news on throughout the day, watching in the downstairs kitchen while he washes up from dinner. Flash floods cause extensive property damage and one fatality when a man tries to navigate the flood waters in a sedan.

“There was nothing you could have done,” Cas says, coming up behind him. He places his hands on Dean’s waist. “You couldn’t have prevented the river from flooding any more than you could have stopped the rain.”

“Still sucks,” Dean says and lets the water run over his hands.

"Yes,” Cas agrees and reaches around Dean to shut it off. “When are you going hunting again?”

"Dunno,” Dean answers, turning around. “If that demon shows its face, I might head back down, but that’s a long day in the car. My back’s still sore.”

“You used to drive twice as long,” Cas says with amusement.

“I used to be in my thirties,” Dean reminds him. He fingers the buttons on Cas’s shirt; the top one is undone and reveals the base of his neck. He touches Cas’s skin, lets his hand rest there. “Dinner was good," he says after a while.

Cas smiles like he’s guarding a secret and kisses him, then pulls away and goes to the refrigerator. He takes out a blue and white carton and sets it beside the mixer. “Get me the vanilla extract,” he directs. Dean locates the bottle in the pantry and hands it over, tonguing the inside of his cheek as Cas pours whipping cream into the metal bowl, adds a splash of vanilla, and adjusts the speed to medium. He gradually steps it up to full speed. Despite the splatter shield, the cream leaves tiny, white flecks on the bowl and surrounding counter. Dean shamelessly swipes a finger through them and sucks it clean.

He’s mid-fantasy of Cas laying him on the bed, licking whipped cream off of his chest, when Cas takes something out of the oven. The something is pie shaped and covered in aluminum foil.

“I recall how much you enjoyed the whipped cream from the diner,” Cas says coyly.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Dean says, gripping his fork in anticipation as Cas serves him an oversized slice heaped with the stuff. It’s apple pie, not too sweet, with lots of butter and cinnamon, and crushed walnuts in the crust. It beats the best diner pie by a mile. Cas’s expression is smug as he settles onto a stool and watches Dean dig in.

“You’re not having some?” Dean asks.

Cas parts his mouth and leans forward, inviting Dean to feed him, so he does, shoving a bite of pie into his mouth, kissing it closed. He brushes whipped cream onto Cas’s nose and licks it off. In response, Cas fists his hair and tugs him off of the stool and onto the counter, standing between Dean’s legs. Dean ignores the pie’s siren call to slide his hands up and under Cas’s shirt.

“Is Kevin still here?” Dean asks as Cas pushes up his shirt and mouths over his chest, hovering to swipe his tongue flat over a nipple, then tease it.

“Yes,” Cas says between licks.

“We should go upstairs.”

“Yes,” Cas says again, but he stays where he is. Dean thrills at the thought of Kevin walking in on them, at the idea of being caught having sex in his own kitchen. He hisses when Cas unfastens his jeans, opens them just enough, and braces himself with the edge of the counter. Cas’s mouth is warm; Dean clenches his teeth to keep from moaning out loud and drops a hand to Cas’s head, stroking his hair. Cas pulls off long enough to look up and catch Dean’s eyes. His expression is hungry and intense, lips and chin wet with spit. This is new territory. Dean’s nervous, but he’s on board.

Cas gives one hell of a blow job; Dean feels it down to his toes, lets his head loll back between his shoulders when he comes panting Cas’s name. Afterwards, Cas feeds him the rest of the pie, then washes his hands, disinfects the counter, and starts prepping for tomorrow’s breakfast.

“Dude, you’re not seriously cooking right now,” Dean says. Cas’s face is still flushed, lips wet. Dean is ready for round two, and the guy’s sifting flour.

“Baking,” Cas corrects. “This will only take a few minutes. Will you start the dishes?”

“Sure,” Dean agrees, deflating, and goes to hover at the sink. The mixer bowl is waiting to be washed. Dean runs his index finger around the rim until he’s got a decent amount of whipped cream piled up; he smears it artfully across Cas’s cheek. Cas freezes and says, low and gravelly, “Dean.”

“Shame to let it go to waste,” Dean defends.

Cas retaliates by leaving two white handprints on Dean’s ass.

“You know I’m going to make Saruman references now,” Dean tells him, dragging the four fingers of his right hand through the mixing bowl and swiping Cas across the face. Cas answers with a cloud of flour that leaves Dean sputtering. They move like they’re in a knife fight, taking aborted, calculated jabs at one another. There’s flour and whipped cream on the floor and on the cabinets. Cas pins him up against the refrigerator.

“I need to finish breakfast,” he says.

“Not stopping you,” Dean counters, but he nips at Cas’s mouth.

+

June is unseasonably hot, Cas says, and too dry. The garden needs frequent watering, and there are brown spots in the lawn. Dean tries putting down fertilizer he finds in the garage, but maybe it’s expired or the wrong kind, because it doesn’t seem to do anything. A week after he spreads it everywhere, the brown spots are still brown, so he decides to forego “saving” the lawn and just mow it. Weeds and grass look pretty much the same when they’re sheared an inch from the ground, though it makes the dead spots more noticeable. Maybe they should just get astroturf.

He makes two more hunting trips during July: a routine poltergeist in New Hampshire, and your typical possession outside of Trenton. Sam agrees to do follow-ups on both, and Dean orders salt in bulk from an online retailer. He continues to dream about a road that takes him nowhere.

When Kate calls about a rumored vamp nest just a couple hours from Philadelphia, Dean flips through his contacts and puts her in touch with Jody. Cas doesn’t say anything when Dean lays out a second place setting at the counter that night, but when they go to bed, he holds Dean a little tighter.

+

“We were thinking of coming up for a few days,” Sam says in a phone call at the end of July. “Do you have any openings?”

“Hang on,” Dean says and pounds down the staircase. He opens the reservations software and pulls up the next few weeks. They’re nearly booked through mid-August, but there’s an opening for a few nights on the 26th—it’s a Wednesday. “Want me to put you down?” he asks.

“Will Cas mind?”

“You kidding? He’s been asking when you guys are coming up. You want all three nights?”

“If you can spare them.”

Dean finds Sam’s name in the list of past guests and applies the reservation to his account. “Done,” he announces. “You should receive a confirmation email.”

“Got it,” Sam says. “This is great. Thanks, Dean.”

“No problem.”

“Anything new going on?” Sam asks. “Any memories surface yet?”

“No,” Dean says. "Cas wants me to go talk to someone. I’m thinking of saying yes.”

“That’s good,” Sam tells him.

“Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. I’m feeling pretty good."

“Still running?”

“Back down to 165,” Dean says and pats his stomach.

“Not too bad,” Sam compliments. "Bet Cas is happy about it.”

“I don’t think he notices stuff like that,” Dean says with a laugh. “He’s glad I’m happier, though. I’m glad I can fit my 34s again. Too much french toast.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“Alright,” Dean concedes. “I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Sounds good.”

After they hang up, Dean goes for a run. He covers the outline of the orchard. The trees are beginning to show signs of fruit. The day is hot and muggy, and his shirt is soaked through when he gets back to the house.

“Hey,” he calls and kisses Cas briefly on his way to the shower. “Sam and Susie are coming up with the kids on the 26th—that okay?”

“Fine,” Cas says cheerfully. “Did you block it in the system?”

“He already got his confirmation.”

Cas looks at him fondly. “Thank you,” he says after a few seconds.

“For what?”

Cas shrugs. “Life,” he says.

+

Susie goes to take a nap as soon as they arrive. “I worked last night,” she says through a yawn. “I just need a few hours.”

“Take your time,” Cas tells her. “You’re here to relax.”

“You’re so good at this,” she says and touches his shoulder. “You sure you can handle them?”

“Sam might be a handful,” Dean says with mock sincerity, “but I think we’ll be okay with the kids.”

Cas herds everyone onto the porch. He lays out a tray of vegetables and some healthy Greek yogurt nonsense dip for the kids, so Dean is sure to hand both of them a can of soda and chocolate as soon as Sam and Cas get talking about property taxes and Roth IRAs and other adult stuff that makes Dean feel old.

“Uncle Dean?” Mary says, “will you do the crossbow?”

“Come again?”

“The crossbow,” she repeats. “Please?”

Dean gives Sam a withering look.

“Only if he’s up for target practice right now, guys,” Sam says.

“Oh,” Dean says. “Sure. Hang on.” He holds out his hands, palms outward, like that’ll make both kids stay put. They trot after him across the yard, to his office that he unlocks while stepping around Rotgut, who has decided to take a nap up against the door.

“Don’t touch anything,” Dean orders, and despite the warning, John immediately climbs into Dean’s chair like it’s his own. He peruses the spread of artifacts with a twisted-up mouth, but he keeps his hands on the arm rests.

“When can I be a hunter?” John asks.

“Uh,” Dean says, his brain screeching to a halt. What’s he supposed to say? John Winchester would’ve placed the crossbow in John’s hands, but Dean’s pretty sure Sam would be pissed if he started recruiting six-year-olds. “Who told you I was a hunter?”

“Daddy,” John says. “He says you keep us safe.”

“Well, you’ve gotta ask your parents about that, bud.”

“But dad won't tell us anything,” Mary sulks and begins to rearrange the pushpins. She removes a blue pin in a sea of white, replaces it with a white one.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Making it pretty again,” she says, which solves the mystery of color coding.

“Dad never tells us anything," John agrees with a wounded expression.

Dean fingers the crossbow where it hangs on the wall. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, “sometimes I wish my dad had been more like yours.”

“I was named after grandpa,” John says proudly. His bottom lip juts out.

“I know,” Dean tells them. “Your grandpa was a good man, but not much of a father. Your dad loves you. That’s why he doesn’t want you knowing about this stuff until you’re older. You should just focus on being kids. Okay? Get dirty.”

Mary crouches to pet Rotgut, who has wound his way around her ankles. He manages to look simultaneously content and pissed off, arching up into Mary’s hand while flattening his ears. “Dad said you slept in a lot of motels when you were little, and that’s why you and Uncle Cas have a B&B, so you can give people a nice place to sleep,” she says.

Dean laughs. “Well,” he says, pushing a hand into his hair. “Your dad might have something there.”

“Do you love Uncle Cas?” John asks.

“Course,” Dean says, frowning. “That’s why I let him stick around.”

“When are you and Uncle Cas gonna have a baby?”

Dean feels like he’s on an awful daytime talk show with pint-sized hosts. He instantly regrets feeding them sugar. His voice is caught in his throat, and his face is flaming. “Let’s go shoot stuff,” he suggests and grabs a fistful of practice arrows. He’s met with matching grins and the inquisition comes to a halt.

Rotgut follows and curls up next to Cas, but at enough of a distance that Cas can’t reach out to pet him. Dean can’t stop _looking_ at Cas and _smiling,_ even though he’s just sitting on lawn furniture nodding as Sam speaks.

“Uncle _Dean_ ,” John pleads, dragging out the last syllable. Dean forces himself to stop looking toward the porch and sets up the targets.

He’s never considered his company when he’s shooting things—it’s usually a matter of urgency, and some monster’s advancing on him—but he’s preoccupied with making sure both kids stay behind him, out of the way of any errant projectiles. They place a couple targets in the middle of the grass, and Dean lets the kids call the shots.

Mary points and says, “Hit the one on the right,” then takes a breath and adds, “with your _eyes closed_.”

“You got it,” he says, “but stay behind me.” He holds up the bow and aims.

Four arrows later, John is tugging on his shirt, begging, “I wanna do it.”

“Not up to me, buddy," Dean says, placing a hand on John’s head and looking at Sam.

“That bow’s a little big for you,” Sam says, turning toward them.

“But Mary got to do it last time!”

“I’m bigger than you,” Mary points out.

“Maybe we should do something else?” Dean suggests.

“One shot,” Sam says, “but don’t tell your mother.”

“Why can’t he tell Susan?” Cas asks, genuinely confused, cocking his head.

“I’m telling her,” John announces gleefully and reaches for the crossbow. Dean holds it closer to his chest, out of reach.

“Hey, Susan likes me,” he reminds them. “I’m not pissing her off.”

“Language,” Sam says.

Dean stares at him.

“Here,” Sam says, standing and holding out a hand for the bow. "This way, _I’ll_ be the one in trouble.”

“Your funeral,” Dean says. He climbs onto the porch and steals Sam’s chair.

John takes to working the crossbow with unsettling ease. He misses the targets, but Dean can almost feel his enthusiasm. “Hunting’s in his blood,” Dean murmurs proudly. Cas squeezes his hand as Mary takes over under Sam’s strict tutelage and manages to hit the closest target, near the ground. John pokes his head around the railing.

“Can I stay with you and Uncle Cas tonight?” he asks.

“What, you mean upstairs?” Dean says.

"I don’t wanna share with Mary.”

“You can have the couch,” Cas tells him, and John runs back to Sam, looking immensely pleased with himself. Dean squeezes Cas’s hand this time.

“Will you be alright here for a bit?” Cas asks, turning toward him.

“Yeah, why?” Dean asks with a frown.

“I have to pick up new sheets, and our soap order is in.”

“I’ll get it,” Dean says. “You stay here with Sam.”

“He’s your brother.”

“Last time I checked, he’s yours too,” Dean says. He kisses Cas before he can reply, pats down his pocket for his keys. He calls over the lawn, “Alright, who’s taking a ride with me?”

+

Dean leaves the Impala’s windows rolled down for the ride, so Mary’s hair is a wild tangle when they park and get out of the car in Essex Junction. She shakes it out in a way that is so Sam-like that Dean has to bite back his laughter.

“What?” she asks, running a hand through it.

“Nothing,” he says and guides her onto the sidewalk.

They go to the linen outlet first, where he studies the slip of paper Cas handed him with sheet specs and tries to match them up to the store’s offerings.

“What’s the difference between regular cotton and Egyptian cotton?” he asks the piece of paper. They stand in front of an entire wall of the wrong sheet options.

“Maybe it comes from Egypt?” Mary replies with a shrug, which is as good a guess as any.

The shopkeeper comes to their rescue, finding a matching set of off-white, 300 thread count, 100% Egyptian cotton sheets. “And extra pillowcases,” Dean says, pointing to Cas’s final line item.

They head to the soap shop next, where Dean is relieved he only has to give his name. He buys Mary a bottle of all-natural mosquito repellant and some lipgloss she’s eyeing up next to the register. “Thought we’d have a bonfire tonight,” he says.

“Marshmallows?” she asks hopefully.

“What do you think,” he says with a grin and thinks of the stash he’s got in the pantry.

They get ice cream, because this is Sam’s daughter, which means she’s been raised on a diet of rabbit food. It’s Dean’s responsibility as an uncle to make sure she's tasted the finer things in life, like chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream.

“You don’t have any allergies, right?” he asks, panicked, as she takes a first lap at the cone. They sit inside the ice cream parlor. The table is sticky, and Sam would kill him if Dean sent his kid into anaphylactic shock.

“No,” she says, amused, and licks again. Dean relaxes and licks his own.

“You excited for school to start up again?” he asks.

“Kinda,” Mary says with a shrug and a smile, and he imagines her bent over a book just like her dad. She kicks his boots under the table when she swings her legs and grins when he frowns at her.

It becomes an ice cream race at the end, which Mary wins only because Dean's cone starts to drip down his hand and onto his jacket.

“We’re gonna have a rematch,” he tells her as he mops up the puddle on the table and shoves the remaining cone into his mouth. Sugar cones beat cake cones any day. “Should we bring ice cream back for your brother?”

“No!” she says with delight. “I won’t tell.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he says with a wink, and they head out to the car.

They pass the flower shop on the way, and a picture in the window catches Dean’s eye. It’s a honeybee alighting on a blue flower. He slows his pace, hooking a thumb through his belt loop and glancing farther into the store. He spots Rose behind the counter, arranging pink and orange flowers in a vase.

“Um,” he says, indicating the door with his thumb. “Let’s go inside for a minute.”

“Okay,” Mary says and pushes the door open with both palms.

The chimes ring overhead, concurrent with a flush that creeps up Dean’s neck. He rubs the back of it and approaches the counter.

“Dean!” Rose says when she notices them. She slides the vase aside and dries her hands on her apron. “Good to see you. And who is this lovely lady?”

“This is my niece, Mary. Mary, this is Rose.”

“Hello,” Mary says politely before vanishing behind a display of potted plants.

“I don’t have any orders for you,” Rose says, glancing at a stack of paperwork to her left. Her forehead creases slightly.

“Oh,” Dean says, shifting his weight between his feet. “Actually, I was hoping I could just pick up a few things.”

Rose’s smile comes back broadly. “What kind of flowers does he like?” she asks.

“Uh. He likes bees,” Dean answers lamely.

“Typical husband. I might be biased,” she says with a wink, “but what about yellow roses? Something tells me he’ll like them.”

Dean nods and says, “You’re the expert,” and hands over his credit card.

“Hey,” he calls to Mary. He can see the top of her head. She’s across the store, leaning into each display of flowers and sniffing, like he needed any more proof this is Sammy’s kid. “Pick out something for your mom.”

She happily holds the paper-wrapped roses and a pot of red gerber daisies on her lap during the ride home. While Dean is occupied gathering the bags from the back seat, Mary crosses the lawn and presents the flowers to Cas.

“They’re from Uncle Dean,” he hears her announce. His face is pink by the time he reaches the porch.

“I got the sheets,” he tells Cas and holds up the bag. Cas is holding the roses to his chest. Sam is laughing at the pair of them from behind his hand.

“Mom’s still sleeping,” he tells Mary when she puts a hand on the door. “Let’s go put those by the sink, get out of the sun for a little bit.” He takes her indoors; John trots after Sam like a puppy.

“Want me to put those in water?” Dean asks Cas, pointing to the roses.

“In a minute,” Cas says, pushing off the porch with a foot and rocking slowly.

He looks so happy that Dean can’t stand it. He transfers both bags to his left hand, cups his right around Cas’s cheek, and kisses him hard. Cas lays the roses on the adjacent chair and guides Dean onto his lap, so they’re both facing forward. He hooks his chin over Dean’s shoulder and laces his hands over his stomach. Dean closes his eyes as the chair begins to rock.

“I love you,” Cas murmurs.

Dean exhales a surprised gasp of laughter and grins stupidly as his eyes water. He finds Cas’s mouth.

“Ditto,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

Susan wakes up at dinner time, clapping a hand over her mouth as she stifles a yawn, saying, “I didn’t mean to sleep that long.” She falls onto a kitchen stool.

“We got you flowers,” John announces and points to the pot. Dean catches Mary’s eye before she can protest and shakes his head. He mouths “ice cream,” and she sighs in resignation.

“Well, thank you both,” Susan says and kisses them on the head. “They’re very pretty.”

“Burgers okay?” Dean asks. “I didn’t start yet in case you want something else.”

“I’d never pass up your burgers,” she says and opens the fridge. “Is it too early for beer?”

“My kind of woman,” Dean says.

He fires up the grill after Cas has laid out tea and come around the back of the house. Kevin is keeping the guests company. The grill is large, with plenty of room for enough to feed everyone two rounds, and a set of burners. Dean heats up baked beans in a saucepan while the burgers cook, dripping grease onto the flames. They leap up to sear the undersides while Mary liberally spritzes herself with insect spray.

Mary and Sam take their burgers with cheese, Susan and John without. John eats ketchup but not mustard. Mary wants all the toppings—Cas and Dean nod approvingly. Sam uses so much lettuce he might as well call it a salad. Susan sips her beer and mentions she’s quietly job searching.

“I’d love a day shift,” she says wistfully. “Are you two hiring?”

The sun doesn’t begin to set until after seven; Dean already has a fire roaring by the time the first stars are visible. He waves over to the handful of guests who peek around the side of the porch.

“Plenty to go around,” he says and hands out skewers. The guests—a family of four from Iowa—sit in the mismatched furniture surrounding the fire pit, just a cleared dirt area around a circular brick fireplace. Dean has logs leaning together like a pyramid, and the fire is roaring.

John hands Sam his stake and asks for two marshmallows. Mary gleefully spears three by herself and thrusts them into the flames. Within a minute, she’s holding three blackened lumps aloft, blows on them, and goes to town. The two kids from Iowa, Lauren and Beth, follow suit, and soon all four of them have sticky mouths and sugar-spiked grins. They run through the grass barefoot, catching fireflies.

“I got one!” Beth exclaims, shrieking when it lights up in her palm. It flies a distance away and blinks again, then again.

“They’re fascinating,” the woman, Olivia, says. “They blink to attract a mate.”

“Got one in my mouth once,” Dean shares with a grimace. “Tasted like a nine-volt battery.”

Susan, Sam, and the guests make predictable, disgusted noises. Cas screws up his face; Dean laughs and pats his knee. The stars are bright overhead, and as the minutes pass, the fire dims. One by one, they go in to bed. Sam takes John inside first.

“We promised he could sleep upstairs,” Cas says to Susan, who waves her hand in the air.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “You two enjoy your night."

The family from Iowa retires next, citing an early morning trip to the lake. They thank Dean and Cas for including them.

“We’ll see you at breakfast,” Cas tells them while Dean pokes the fire.

Susan stays the longest, outlasting Mary, who falls asleep holding her skewer. Sam comes to carry her in over his shoulder.

“See you guys in the morning,” Sam says. “I’m turning in.” With a hand on Susan’s shoulder, he says, “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Hazard of working nights,” she says, but she smiles up at him.

They drink another round of beer before Susan starts to yawn and checks her watch. “It’s only nine. Can’t believe I’m already tired,” she says. “What’s in those burgers?”

“Take your time in the morning,” Cas says. “I’ll make breakfast once you’re all up.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she says. She kisses his cheek, punches Dean in the shoulder, and gathers the beer bottles. She carries them inside and switches on the porch light.

Dean yawns and slumps in his chair, sliding low enough that he can rest his head on the back. The fire is down to embers, faintly glowing red in the dirt. Cas has his eyes raised toward the heavens. Dean looks up at the stars but can’t find any constellations he recognizes. He wonders if they do this a lot, stargazing. He wonders if Cas is thinking about his former home.

“You okay?" he asks. Cas lowers his face and turns, smiling as he meets Dean’s eyes.

“Let’s take a walk,” he suggests.

Dean pours dirt on the fire to smother it and steps on it until the charred bits of wood aren't glowing any more. Cas holds out a hand, which Dean takes. They walk between the rows of apple trees, which are full and fragrant. Cas pushes him up against one and slides his hands beneath Dean’s shirt. His arms are strong and hold Dean firmly against the tree. The bark is rough against his back, but Cas’s mouth is gentle as he kisses Dean’s neck, his ear, the square of his jaw. Dean tugs on Cas's belt loops and draws their hips together, grinding against him shamelessly.

A bird calls repeatedly from a nearby tree, and Dean whispers Cas’s name against the thrum of insects, into the breeze as it sweeps through the orchard and rustles the branches overhead. When he opens his eyes, he sees the porch light centered in the path leading out from among the trees. The sky is dark, and the orchard is dark. The house is a beacon in the distance. Around them, the fireflies hover and flicker.

Dean catches Cas’s mouth and kisses him with a sweetness he didn’t know he possessed. Cas crowds into him, unzips their jeans, and they moan together into the wind.

There’s more kissing and a shower; clean skin and cool sheets; Cas’s solid, protective arms around him. Dean might not be deserving of this, but he wants it. He _wants_ it. He gulps and clutches at Cas’s hands beneath the sheets, and vows he's going to keep it.

+

He hasn’t had the dream in a while, but it comes to him again the night before Sam and Susan leave. He’s walking alone on the same stretch of highway, except it’s light outside for once. The sun is at its peak in the sky. The surface of the road is hot, radiating heat. He walks on the edge, in the dirt. The sun beats hot on his face, burning his cheeks and forehead, his nose. He sweats through his t-shirt and has to remove his jacket.

His throat grows parched the longer he walks, but he knows he has to keep going. Eventually, he’ll reach something, someone, anything that can tell him where he is.

The road goes on and on, and Dean follows it.

“Dean?” he hears Cas’s voice call to him.

“Cas?” he yells back, but Cas isn’t there. He’s never there. He speaks again, but it’s garbled, meaningless chatter, like radio static. Dean hears the telltale rustle of wings.

“Dean,” a second voice says. It’s familiar, closer, but Dean can’t immediately place it.

“Who are you?” he shouts. The sun blazes and hurts his eyes.

“You have to come back,” the voice says. It is foreign, accented—Australian, maybe, or British.

“Back where?” he calls. “Who the hell are you?”

The wings rustle again, carry the voice farther down the road. Dean sprints despite the heat but never catches up to it.

+

“So about that full-time job," Dean teases as Susan loads the suitcases into the car.

“Someday,” she says. She stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He wonders how the hell she reaches Sam’s face. “Thank you. I needed this.”

“We’ll come see you guys soon,” Dean says. “Soon as the mid-week’s free.”

“Good,” she says brightly. She squeezes his arm and goes inside to round up the kids. Dean hugs John and Mary, who are half asleep. It’s just past seven in the morning.

“Figured we’d avoid the traffic,” Sam says, hugging Dean goodbye and then Cas.

After the car pulls away, Dean slings an arm around Cas’s shoulders and guides them back inside, where he busies himself making coffee.

“I’ll take it out,” he says, filling the carafe and sliding past Cas, kissing the back of his neck as he does. He pushes open the door to the front room with his foot and smiles his good morning to the family from Iowa. They’re sitting on the couch next to the fireplace.

“Heading home today?” he asks.

“Sadly,” Olivia replies.

“Hope you guys had a great stay.”

“We loved it,” she says. “We’ll be back.”

“Glad to hear it. Drive safely,” Dean tells them and refills both of their mugs, then moves to the next table. It’s a couple who lives about an hour away and just needed a long weekend. They don’t want refills, but the couple from New York both get seconds.

There’s a man sitting in front of the bay window, with a newspaper held up, obscuring his face. Dean pauses and scans the room again: the family from Iowa and the two couples, plus Sam and Susan, equaled a full house last night. No one has arrived for Monday check-ins—it’s too early in the day. But the guy is sitting here, adjusting his newspaper with a crack. Dean can’t account for him. He clears his throat and approaches the table.

“Coffee?” he offers.

The man lowers the newspaper, and Dean does a double take.

“You’re a hard man to reach,” Balthazar says, laying the newspaper on the table. He leans back in the chair. Dean glances over his shoulder to make sure the other guests aren’t watching them. They appear preoccupied within their respective groups.

“Thought you were dead,” Dean says in a clipped tone. He sets the coffee on the table and folds his arms across his chest.

“That _was_ my intention,” Balthazar says dryly. “I knew Castiel would betray me, so I took a feather from Gabriel’s wing.”

Dean frowns. “Wait, literally?”

Balthazar makes a face, and Dean realizes it’s a metaphor. He sighs heavily.

“What do you want?" he asks.

“I need to hitchhike a lift into Heaven,” Balthazar says, “so unfortunately, I need your help to locate an artifact.”

“Plenty of people you can bother besides me,” Dean says with a humorless chuckle. “Hell, I can give you a whole list of names.”

Balthazar smirks. “The artifact I need doesn’t exist here,” he says.

“You're not zapping me into some freaky alternate universe,” Dean mutters under his breath. “Does Cas know you’re here?”

Balthazar’s eyes flit to the hallway, to the kitchen door. “Should I say hello?”

Dean isn’t sure how Cas will react to one of his brothers dropping in, especially one he thought he’d killed. He’ll probably be ecstatic to see him alive, but it could also trigger one of Cas’s existential crises. Sammy’s busy driving right now, otherwise Dean would give him a call to find out the last time they were bothered by one of these ass clowns.

Dean has worked plenty of cases solo; he’ll just feel out Balthazar, find out exactly what he wants, tell him to fuck off, and inform Cas later when they don’t have a household of people.

“We shouldn’t talk here,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Meet me in the garage in five.”

Balthazar gives him a withering look, rolls his eyes, and taps the empty mug in front of him.

“Figured you for a tea drinker,” Dean says flatly and fills it.

“When in Rome,” Balthazar says and drinks, directing his attention back to the newspaper.

+

Dean mumbles an excuse to Cas about checking Baby’s trunk for a shirt he can’t find.

“Think I left it in there after my last trip,” he says lamely and rubs the back of his neck.

“Okay,” Cas replies and takes down a mixing bowl.

Dean stalks across the lawn and opens the garage door, lets it fall closed behind him. Rotgut lifts his head from where he’s napping beside the door to Dean’s office. Balthazar is leaning against Baby’s hood, in black pants and a shirt and his familiar, miffed expression.

“Truth time, jackass. How’d you find us?” Dean says gruffly, flipping on the light. “Cas is warded.”

Balthazar squints as dust swirls and settles. He sniffs. “I can literally _smell_ your love,” he says. “You might as well be wearing a homing beacon. It’s frankly nauseating.”

Dean sniffs self-consciously, but all he smells is a garage: lingering traces of oil and gas, with a top note of rubber tires. He lets the comment slide.

“You said you needed my help,” he says through a frown. “Why’s it gotta be me?”

"Your brother would do as well, but he refuses to help me unless I pull you out of here.”

Dean’s scowl deepens. “What?” he asks.

Balthazar outright sighs this time. “Do you recall attempting to summon an angel shortly after your soul was restored?” he asks.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“So you don’t remember finding a feather in that storage room of yours and praying to anyone who would listen for someone to heal Castiel? Good thing I happened to be listening.”

“Man, I’ve got no patience for this,” Dean says and crouches to lift the garage door. He’s got it an inch off the ground when Balthazar speaks again.

“You want it in layman’s terms, fine. This isn’t _real_ , Dean.”

Dean freezes momentarily, blinks, and lowers the door back to the ground.

“ _What’s_ not real,” he asks, straightening, “your feathery ass messing up my polish?”

“This,” Balthazar says, lifting his hands, turning his head side to side to indicate everything around them. Dean’s stomach drops out, and he swallows hard. There's no _way_.

“You’re a lying sonofabitch,” he says with a finger jab in Balthazar’s direction.

Balthazar sighs, annoyed, and floats his gaze up to the ceiling, muttering, “For as much work as my father put into your species, you humans are so willfully ignorant.”

“You know what?” Dean snaps. “Blow me.”

“Little known fact about cupid feathers,” Balthazar says, straightening. "They’re imbued with power. Of course, they wouldn’t look any different to _you_ , which is why you got yourself blasted into Pleasantville. Imagine my surprise when I turned up in Kansas and found you’re missing. Your genetic defect of a brother and feathery half are frantic.”

It’s bullshit. Sam’s back home with Susie and the kids by now; Cas is in the kitchen. Balthazar is lying, and it takes every ounce of Dean’s self control to keep from clocking him.

“This is a fantasy,” Balthazar continues coolly. “It only _feels_ real because it’s guided by your _heart_. It’s what you want.” He makes a face like he’s just swallowed a bug. “Of course, Cas knew what happened immediately, but he’s too weak to come after you. Lucky me, I got saddled with the job.”

“You’re full of shit,” Dean says gruffly.

“I really don’t care if you believe me or not,” Balthazar replies. “But you’re coming back with me. Unfortunately, I need you to agree to leave, or we'd be back by now.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Balthazar pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sam said you’d be hard to convince. He said you wanted to stay in a djinn’s illusion a few years ago.”

Dean narrows his eyes. Sam wouldn’t tell that kind of personal shit to Balthazar. Is the asshole memory snooping?

“Let me guess: you're suffering from memory loss,” Balthazar continues. “You simply woke up here. Don’t you find that convenient?”

Dean falters. He goes cold and hot all over, goosebumps rising on his thighs, and a flush spreading over his neck and back.

“Get off my property,” he orders.

“You still owe me a favor," Balthazar reminds him.

“Yeah, well, I’m reneging.”

“I wish you could see them,” Balthazar says with a shake of his head. “Hard to believe Castiel was ever an angel. His grace is so diminished, he can’t get off the couch. I’d estimate he has another day, perhaps two, at the rate he’s fading.”

Dean grits his teeth. Balthazar stands and smooths his shirt, letting his arms hang at his sides. He regards Dean evenly.

“Think about what I said. Call when you’re ready.”

He vanishes in a flap of invisible wings.

“Dick,” Dean mutters and heads back inside.

Cas has his lips pressed together firmly, staring down a recipe on his tablet screen like he might smite it with the wooden spoon he’s holding. Seeing him is a relief. The tension in Dean’s chest eases.

“Everything okay?” he asks, mildly amused.

“Oh,” Cas says, his face softening. “I'm reading through the whole recipe again, to make sure there aren’t any other unlisted ingredients. This called for shortening, but it wasn’t on the ingredient list.”

“I’ll get it,” Dean offers, taking off his jacket and opening the pantry. What the heck does shortening look like?

“Top shelf, right side,” Cas says.

Dean grabs a squat, round container with a blue label and slides it across the counter.

“Thank you,” Cas says and spreads a layer of shortening in a cake pan.

“Hey, I was wondering,” Dean starts, sinking down onto one of the bar stools. He rests his face in his hands. “Do we ever see anyone from before? Do you ever see your brothers?”

“Not often,” Cas says, touching the tablet’s screen, which has gone dark. He mouths along as he reads, then looks up at Dean again. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Dean says with a shrug. “We’ve hung out with Sam and Susie a lot. Wanted to make sure there isn’t anyone you want to see.”

Cas nods his appreciation and goes back to reading the recipe. Dean drums his fingers on the counter. “So what’re you making?” he asks.

“Cinnamon rolls,” Cas says seriously.

“Need any help?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you have an interest in baking?”

Dean shrugs and comes around to Cas’s side of the counter. “I like a lot of things,” he says, trailing a finger over Cas’s belt buckle. Cas looks unconvinced, but he takes a second apron from a peg inside the pantry and ties it around Dean’s waist.

“Wash your hands,” he instructs, so Dean does.

Cas uncovers a pale lump of dough that was resting beneath a dish towel, and he places it on the marble slab. He directs Dean to stand in front of him, reaches his arms around Dean’s sides and takes up a long, wooden rolling pin.

“First, we have to roll this into a rectangle,” he says and glides the rolling pin over the dough. Dean inhales the scent of yeast and watches Cas roll northwest, northeast, south. “Put your hands on mine,” Cas says low in his ear. Dean grins and obeys. Cas rewards him with a kiss behind his ear.

He uses a ruler—an actual freaking ruler—to make sure he’s rolled the dough thin enough, then steps away from Dean’s back. Dean watches him unwrap a stick of butter that has been softening on the counter. Some of it sticks to the wrapper. With a spatula, Cas spreads butter across the surface of the dough, then has Dean sprinkle it with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, then handfuls of chopped pecans.

“That good?” Dean asks, examining his work to ensure it’s even. It isn’t, but at least there’s cinnamon and sugar coating the whole thing, and what looks like a decent amount of pecans.

“Very good,” Cas compliments. “Now we roll it into a log."

And they do, with Cas’s hands guiding his. Dean angles his head to catch Cas’s mouth when they’re done, and Cas slices the roll into even pieces, eleven by Dean’s count. He arranges them in the greased pan.

"Oven?” Dean asks, tilting it open, but Cas shakes his head.

“They have to rise for an hour,” he says. “But it’s worth the wait.”

They make use of the time upstairs, lying together on the couch. There’s hardly room for both of them, but Dean lies on his side, propped up on an elbow, and pulls Cas flush against him. He keeps an arm draped over Cas’s side as he channel surfs and nuzzles his neck.

There’s no way what Balthazar said is true, not when he can count the grey hairs that are flecked throughout Cas’s hair, when he can curl his fingers into his shirt, feel the steady beat of Cas’s pulse against his lips where Dean kisses him.

“You wanna go out tonight?” he asks with sudden urgency. “Go out to dinner, grab a beer? Or we could drive over to the lake. I still haven’t seen it.”

“It’s Kevin’s night off,” Cas reminds him.

“Oh,” Dean says and exhales in disappointment. “Right. Forgot.”

“I need to get started on the laundry,” Cas says and stretches into him, his voice a yawn. Dean presses his lips to Cas’s hairline again.

“I’ll help you,” he offers. Cas rolls onto his back and gives Dean a questioning look.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I can count on two hands the number of times you’ve volunteered to help with the laundry,” Cas says with a smirk.

“Which rooms?” Dean asks.

“Just two and three,” Cas says. “The other two are here through Thursday.”

“Can’t wait for the winter,” Dean says. “I get you to myself.”

“Christmas is popular,” Cas says, fisting Dean’s shirt.

“Not this year,” Dean insists, leaning down to kiss him. “I’m locking the door, and we’re holing up for a week.” Cas snickers into his mouth.

“If you say so,” he says, but he sits up and rolls his neck side to side, then stands. He pulls Dean from the couch.

+

They do laundry and check on the cinnamon rolls, which need to bake for forty-five minutes. They’ve risen above the lip of the pan. Dean pokes an edge with his finger. The texture of the dough is sticky and spongy. As they bake, the smell of cinnamon fills the house.

When Cas switches a load of sheets over to the dryer, Dean catches a whiff of fabric softener when Cas carries a clean armful through the kitchen. Dean jogs ahead of him to hold open the hall door, reaches in Cas’s pocket for the set of keys.

“Which one is this?” he asks.

“Room three," Cas says, then, with a frown, “Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“Maybe we can rent a movie on TV,” Dean says in reply, pushing open the door. “Have a date on the floor. Do we have popcorn?”

“How much coffee did you drink today?” Cas asks with a laugh, setting the sheets on the bed and rooting through them for the pillow cases.

+

There’s a _Die Hard_ marathon on TV, so Dean pushes the coffee table out of the way and spreads a blanket from the bed on the floor. He grabs an armful of pillows and stacks them up against the couch. Cas washes up from dinner while Dean grabs a shower. He changes into a dark t-shirt and black boxer briefs, microwaves a bag of popcorn he finds in the upstairs cabinet, and lies on the floor in wait.

“Hey,” he says with a wink when Cas comes upstairs. He looks pleased by the trap Dean laid for him and unbuttons his shirt before dropping to the floor and crawling over Dean’s body.

“Hey,” he says into his mouth and removes Dean’s glasses.

Dean slides his hands over Cas’s stomach, to his shoulders, down his arms, pushing the shirt off. Cas breathes into Dean’s ear, asks, “What should I do to you?”

Dean shivers and bites Cas’s lower lip, drags it between his teeth. He mutes the TV, mutters, “Whatever you want.”

Cas’s pupils dilate as he eases Dean onto his back, captures his wrists and holds them against the floor. Cas’s chin scratches Dean’s inner thighs; his fingers leave bruises; the friction causes rug burn on Dean’s back. Dean tries to catalog every sensation, but he gets swept up in it: the sheen of sweat on Cas’s face and chest, the hitch in his breathing, the way Cas grunts and thrusts his hips faster, then stills, collapsing on Dean’s chest.

Cas threads their hands together; their palms are damp. He breathes into Dean’s neck.

“There are benefits,” he says between breaths, “to being human.”

Dean laughs and smooths Cas’s hair with his free hand, lets it linger.

Cas curls around him afterwards, stroking down Dean’s spine. He pulls the blanket over their legs, traces constellations in the field of freckles across Dean’s back and shoulders.

“You know what I could go for right now?” Dean asks, leaning back into Cas’s hand.

“Another orgasm?”

“Okay, yeah,” Dean says, running a hand up Cas’s thigh, “but I was gonna say we should eat those rolls.”

“I’ll get them,” Cas says. He gets up and doesn’t bother with clothes. Dean takes an appreciative look. Cas winks at him. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Dean lies back against the pillows with a lazy grin at Cas’s R-rated exit. “Promise,” he says, yawning into his hand as he listens to Cas go downstairs and root around in the kitchen. Dean is drowsy and relaxed. He can’t get the smile off his face, bites his lip and inhales. He can’t think of another time he’s ever been this happy.

_It only feels real because it’s guided by your heart. It’s what you want._

He screws a knuckle into his eye and sniffs. Balthazar’s a giant bag of dicks. He survives by lying. Why should Dean believe anything he says? He thinks about what Balthazar said about Cas, that he’s sick. He doesn’t believe it, but he can’t help but picture Cas asleep in the bunker, the weight of Cas’s hand on his chest, the roughness of his palms wrapped around Dean’s wrists.

On the last night Dean can remember, before Sam walked him to his bedroom, Dean had been sitting on the couch with Cas. They were watching TV. Cas’s eyes were heavy; they fluttered closed, but he caught himself, blinked rapid fire until he could focus on the TV again, only to have his eyes close a few seconds later.

Dean watched him sleep, captivated by the stillness. The memory is vivid, like it’s hours old instead of years. Cas looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week. Dean called him a hippie and joked they’d take a vacation at the beach once this was all over, get the color back into his skin.

“Scope out chicks, make sand angels,” he teased without thinking, but Cas just smiled. Dean looks to the bookshelf, to the stack of photo albums. Their beach photos are in the one with the green cover. He glances to his phone on the side table, thinks of Cas’s picture taken on a beach somewhere.

_I’ve observed that humans often make suggestions based on their own desires._

He pulls the blanket more tightly around him until Cas comes back with a plate of rolls and a stack of napkins. He feeds Dean from his fingers. Dean licks the frosting away, moans when Cas grips his hair, sucks on his pulse points, trails his fingers across Dean’s inner thighs. Cas knows all his sweet spots, just how hard to bite, just how filthily to whisper in Dean’s ear.

Dean opens his eyes, stares down the plane of Cas’s back, holds him tightly as Cas grinds down into Dean’s lap, and shudders.

+

“I enjoyed our date,” Cas whispers, smoothing the hair from Dean’s eyes as they lie facing one another in bed. Dean turns his face and smiles into Cas’s palm, kisses the web of life lines.

Cas falls asleep easily, but Dean is restless. Cas’s face appears blue in the moonlight, constructed from shadows, like in Purgatory.

“Cas?” Dean whispers, but Cas doesn’t wake up. Dean ghosts his fingers over Cas’s face, sweeps up his cheekbone, down the bridge of his nose, over his lips. He touches the fringe of lashes beneath each eye, smoothes his eyebrows, scratches through his stubble.

He watches Cas and doesn’t sleep, Balthazar’s words ticking over in his head.

_This isn’t real. This isn’t real, Dean._

He rolls onto his back, but it doesn’t help. Without anything to distract him, it’s all Dean can think about. He’s exhausted, but his mind won’t settle. Doubt is always strongest late at night, when he’s already tired and his mind more vulnerable. He chews a thumbnail ragged, shears the broken bits off between his bottom teeth.

A little after 4am, he gets up, stands naked in the window. He always said he’d get a garage for Baby, one she’d like. He bookmarked a cover just like hers on Sam’s laptop a few months back. He knows, deep down, that he’s always wanted to be like Bobby: a friend, a surrogate father, someone people trust, respect. Semi-retired but not out, not entirely. He daydreams about belonging somewhere.

He eases the bedroom door closed and makes a cup of coffee. He sips it alone in the upstairs kitchen. It shaves off a layer of exhaustion but does nothing for the gnawing anxiety that crawls his gut. He maps the shape of the couch, the hump of each book spine, takes their wedding photo in hand and studies it. He can’t remember that day, but the ring is a solid truth on his left hand, and Cas is asleep in the bedroom. Or...is he? Is it really possible that he dreamed this up?

When he can’t take it any more, he calls Sam, listening to the phone ring and ring before Sam answers with a groggy, “Dean? What’s wrong?”

“I gotta talk to you,” Dean whispers.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asks, earnest.

He can’t do this over the phone—there’s just too much to explain. Dean takes a deep breath. “Can you drive up here?” he asks.

“It’s almost five in the morning,” Sam protests. “Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not—!” Dean takes a deep breath and exhales. “I’m coming there. What’s your address?”

“No, Dean...” Sam begins. Dean hears him shift in the bed, sit up. “Susie just got home, and the kids are sleeping.”

“So?” he asks, scowling.

“Can’t this wait until morning?”

It can’t wait another minute, the way it’s eating away at Dean’s well being. _This isn’t real. This isn’t real._ He can feel the panic circling his chest, beneath his ribs, and shuts his eyes.

“Sammy, you know I wouldn’t ask.”

There’s a long pause. Dean hears Sam exhale, the mattress creak, a shuffle of footsteps, the squeak of door hinges.

“Give me an hour, okay?” Sam says, a little louder. He must’ve gone out into the hallway. Dean imagines him leaning against the door jamb.

“Come around back,” he instructs. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Alright,” Sam says and hangs up.

Dean pulls on clothes in the dark and goes downstairs to wait for him. He brews a pot of coffee and stands in front of the sink, looking out the window at the darkened yard. It conjures an abandoned stretch of highway, the phantom muscle ache from hours and hours of walking, Cas’s muffled shout, “Dean? Dean?”

_You have to come back._

Sam pulls up the drive a little past six. The sun isn’t up, but it’s light enough to see his expression when he taps on the back door. His eyebrows are pinched together, frown pronounced, and he rubs a hand over his mouth. He gives Dean a once over, takes in the rumpled jeans, day-old t-shirt.

“What’s going on?” he asks and shuts the door behind him. Dean jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the coffee pot.

“You look like you need a cup,” he says.

“Brought my own,” Sam says, holding up a thermos. “Are you going to tell me why you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night?”

Dean pours two mugs anyway and drinks his black. It’s earthy and bitter. He shuts his eyes.

The copper sink is smooth and cool to the touch. He dips his fingers into the hammered texture around the rim and faucet. He maps every imperfection in the surface, the gradual shift in color from a warm penny gleam to dark brown in the deepest indentations. He guides his hand along the arc of the faucet. With one finger, he opens the tap and watches the water run. It resurrects the memory of a dog-eared page in a magazine, a picture his mother had shown him.

“I love this sink,” she said. “What do you think?”

He nodded and asked for grapes that he ate while coloring a picture for his dad. His mother laid the magazine aside and patted her large, round belly. The yellow-eyed demon came for her before she ever had a chance to install a sink like that in her own kitchen.

The water churns and swirls down the drain. Dean moves his fingers into the stream, lets it pound beneath his nails, wash away grime. The water’s cold, wet, with all of the properties water should have, but—

What if it isn’t water? What if the the faucet isn’t really on, because there is no faucet? The possibility flits through his mind, and for an instant, the column of water freezes. It hangs from the spout. Sounds abruptly mute. The only movement is the pounding of his heart deep in his gut, the terrified wingbeat of panic. He sucks in a breath. Between blinks, the water resumes falling, its soothing rhythm ineffective against the terror streaking through him.

“I don’t think any of this is real,” he says.

Sam reaches out and shuts off the water. “What?” he asks.

“I just spent hours memorizing every pore on Cas’s face, but, uh.” Dean laughs incredulously. “I don’t think they exist.”

“Maybe we should sit down?” Sam suggests and pulls out a stool for Dean.

“Why don’t I remember anything?” Dean asks, putting a counter between them. “It’s been months."

“It could still come back,” Sam insists.

“You know that saying, if it seems too good to be true?”

Sam stills, smiles softly, and dips his chin. Dean knows resignation on his brother’s face when he sees it. He shakes his head incrementally, praying, _Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m an idiot_. But Sam sits down and folds his hands on the edge of the counter.

“Don’t you think you’ve earned this?” he asks.

“Sammy,” Dean pleads, “please tell me this is real.”

Sam looks at him for a long time.

“It’s as real as you want it to be,” he says finally.

“But...your _kids_ ,” Dean says, his throat tight. “Susie.”

“It’s what you want for me," Sam says, his words tantamount to a fist in Dean’s gut. He bites his lip, worries it between his teeth to fight back tears.

“Yeah? What about Cas?” Dean says. He hates the waver in his own voice. “This isn’t what I want for him. After everything he’s been through, he deserves to go home. I wouldn’t _do_ this to him.”

“You want him to choose you,” Sam says gently. “You don’t think you deserve it, but you want him to stay.”

Dean exhales into his palm and shakes with grief, sick from it. He takes in another breath and another, falls against the refrigerator and exhales. He drops his eyes to the floor and blinks, then looks at his hands, out the window, at anything but the thing sitting at the counter that isn’t his brother.

Movement through the window catches his eye. Dean watches a blue jay land in the garden, on top of one of the trellises. He blinks, and the bird is a red cardinal. When he blinks again, it’s gone.

“Jesus,” he swears.

“This could be your reality, if you stay.”

He knew the offer would come, just like it came from the djinn, but he isn’t prepared for his own reaction to it. He’s relieved. Just thinking about staying here, as absurd as the notion is, temporarily assuages the upset. He can live here for the rest of his life, with Cas, happy and settled and loved. But he’s reminded of what Balthazar said, about Sam and Cas being frantic over him, about Cas dying.

“Yeah? And what about you and Cas?” he asks. “You want me to abandon them?”

Sam’s shoulder rises and falls. “Sometimes, you have to do what’s best for _you._ ”

“I won’t leave them.”

“That’s always been your problem,” Sam says. “You’re never willing to put yourself first.”

“Could they come here?” he asks.

“This is built around you. Once you leave it, you can’t come back.”

“I could burn that feather again,” Dean threatens.

“It wouldn’t be this universe,” Sam says, looking at his hands. “There might be similarities, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get back here.”

"How do you know that?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Sam asks. “I’m no expert, but in my experience, these things don’t usually go the way you want them to.”

"I’ve gotta go back,” Dean says thickly.

“Sam will understand if you stay.”

Overhead, Dean hears the alarm clock go off, the sound of Cas’s feet hitting the floor.

“What about him?” he asks.

“Cas would want what you want. He’ll be okay.”

“He’ll die!” Dean shouts.

“He’s alright with that,” Sam says.

No. This is everything Dean has ever wanted, and everything he was too afraid to ask for, but he can’t do it. He won’t leave Sammy, not like this, without an explanation or a goodbye. He won’t leave Cas to die, or to find somebody else.

Sam knows his decision without Dean saying anything. It’s plain from the way his face goes slack, how he straightens his shirt, clears his throat.

“Okay then,” he says. “I should get out of here before Cas comes downstairs, let you guys...”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. He feels compelled to hug Sam but refrains and walks him outside.

“So,” Sam says with a hand on the car door. “Good luck.”

Dean nods from several paces away. “Thanks.”

The image of Sam climbs into his car and starts the engine. He makes the slow, backward approach toward the road, pulls out and onto it, and shifts into drive. He raises a hand in farewell. Dean lifts his chin in acknowledgement.

The visage shimmers, and Dean stares, disbelieving, at the place where Sam’s car used to be. He didn’t see it drive away, can’t hear it on the road, only the distant sounds of traffic, a bird calling overhead. But he knows that Sam is gone, and he isn’t coming back.

Does Cas know? Cas must know, because Cas isn’t—

Dean chews his lip, strokes the twin scars on his forearm. Sam wasn’t real, which means these scars aren’t real. Neither is this driveway, the gravel under his feet, the wind through the trees behind him, the scent of the apple trees in an orchard that isn’t really standing. And that means that Cas—the weight of him between Dean’s legs, the heat of his mouth, the way he kisses Dean awake on his shoulder—isn’t real either.

The landscape before him shifts and blurs. He stumbles into the garage, toward Baby, and places both hands on her hood. The metal is cool to the touch. She’s solid, but she’s not here either.

“Alright, you feathery son of a bitch,” he grates out.

He cringes at the almost instantaneous flap and ruffle. The movement stirs the garage’s hot, still air. Balthazar appears before him, decidedly unimpressed. He opens both eyes wider in challenge.

“How long?” Dean asks.

“Five days,” Balthazar says. “For you, I’d guess it’s been months.”

Dean’s throat is tight. He clenches his jaw and nods once, dropping his hand.

“How do we get back?” he asks and catches Balthazar’s eyes. Balthazar holds up two fingers and taps his forehead with them. Dean nods again, feeling lightheaded. He wipes his nose on a sleeve.

“Alright,” he says and palms the rough wall. “I’ll go with you, on one condition."

“You really think you’re in a position to bargain?”

“Swear to me Cas won’t die. You do whatever it takes to make sure he lives. Use my soul if you have to, but he lives or I express your ass back to Heaven the old-fashioned way. Capiche?”

There’s a fleeting emotion on Balthazar’s face: he’s impressed. His mouth twitches, but then he nods once and extends a hand with two fingers raised, but Dean holds up both hands.

“I—just give me a minute," he stutters and looks toward the house.

“Right,” Balthazar says. “Let’s waste more time while you say goodbye to your imaginary friends, never mind the real ones who are actually waiting for you to get back.”

“Will it work if I draw the sigil right now, asshole?” Dean challenges. He yanks out a pocket knife, flips it open, holds the blade to his palm. Balthazar hesitates. His eyes lock on Dean’s hand—maybe he doesn’t know for sure, but it’s obvious he’s not taking any chances—and backs away.

“By all means,” he says.

The walk across the lawn is slow, surreal. He stares at the fire pit, at the kitchen garden, at the compost pile brimming with vegetable scraps. One by one, they shimmer and disappear. He brushes his hand over the rocking chairs on the porch; they creak and go permanently silent. He fists the doorknob and chokes on a breath when he sees Cas.

He’s dressed, showered, hair still damp and finger styled. Dean wonders how long he was outside, if there was even time for Cas to shower, or if he’s conjured this too. He wants so badly for Cas to be real, for him to tell Dean that Balthazar is lying, that _Balthazar_ is the illusion, that this house and the life they’ve carved together are what’s real. This morning was just a bad dream.

But another dream replays in his head, of Cas’s disembodied voice calling to him on a darkened highway, of Balthazar’s voice telling him to come back. Dean swallows the knowledge that Balthazar isn’t lying, and Cas isn’t really here. It’s just a perfect copy.

He’s standing at the counter, stirring something. He’s got on that stupid apron, and his back is to Dean. Slowly, Dean walks up behind him and wraps his arms around Cas’s stomach.

“Hey,” he says. He hears the strain in his own voice and kisses Cas’s ear to cover it. “What're you making?”

“Pie filling,” Cas says. Dean squeezes him tighter and is quiet for a long time, feeling Cas’s muscles work. He memorizes the solid feeling of his back, the texture of his hair against Dean’s temple, the smooth patch of skin just behind his ear, and thinks he might die.

“I have to run out for a little bit,” he says with false cheer. He’s only lying to himself, but he’s desperate for the memory.

“Alright,” Cas says, turning his head for a quick kiss. Dean holds it, pressing his lips to Cas’s firmly, desperately.

“I won’t be long,” he lies. His lips tremble. He’s reluctant to drop his arms, but Cas steps out of them and carries the bowl to a prepared pie crust that’s sitting beside the oven.

“This should be ready when you get back,” he says and turns to smile at Dean over his shoulder. Dean backs away from him. He forces a smile and fists his keys. They create a dull, necessary pain that grounds him the harder he squeezes.

“Can’t wait,” he says. Cas turns away and fusses with the pie edges.

He could stay.

He could stay here with Cas until they’re both old, crotchety bastards chasing kids off the front lawn. It could become reality to him again. He’d show John and Mary the ropes, shape a new generation of hunters. He and Cas’ll take a vacation to see Kate, spend a few days at the shore. Susie and Sam will buy that place down the street, and bonfires will become a weekly event. The kids will grow up and move away, and come back with kids of their own. Cas will be there, and Sam will be there. They’ll exist as long as Dean lives; he’ll never have to spend a day without them.

He knows the truth of that, down to his bones. He could stay, and he wants to.

He makes himself take a step toward the door, another, until his back connects with the doorknob. He takes a deep breath and turns around, puts a hand on it, turns it, eases the door open. He sets one foot outside. The deck boards shimmer under his weight.

 _I love you_ , he thinks.

“Oh,” Cas calls over his shoulder. “We’re out of creamer.”

“I’ll grab some,” Dean says. His voice breaks audibly that time, but Cas doesn’t turn to look at him. He spins the pie plate around and around.

Dean’s in a daze as he walks back across the yard. He doesn’t glance over his shoulder to see if the house is still standing. As long as he doesn’t look, there’s still a chance it’s there, and Cas is still inside cooking. He can’t bear to watch it crumble to an empty lot.

He walks back into the garage, back into Balthazar’s company, toward the car that isn’t really his Baby. He can’t look at the cat.

“Get me the fuck outta here before I change my mind,” he chokes out. His vision goes awash.

Balthazar is mercifully quiet as he raises a hand to Dean’s forehead.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean wakes up gasping and paws for the lamp. It isn’t where he expects it to be. Instead, his fingers grasp cold sheets, and the bed beside him is empty.

The room is devoid of the usual morning birdsong, the routine whir of the coffee grinder, Cas’s breathing. It’s preternaturally still, the silence heavy and overbearing. The smell is off. Rather than lavender, it smells like damp, old books and musty laundry. There’s the heavy scent of something greasy cooking, maybe bacon. His stomach growls, and he flops over onto his stomach.

He could be dreaming. The thought makes him perk up, but the lull of voices beyond the door dampens any hope he had. The loudest voice is Sam’s. It’s unmistakable. Dean experimentally reaches a hand to Cas’s side of the bed only to find a nightstand, and a lamp where it had been in his bedroom in the bunker.

He doesn’t turn the switch right away, just fingers the grooves, swirls his thumb around the edge. If he doesn’t switch on the light, he can pretend, just for a moment, that it’s the middle of the night. Cas had to get up for some reason, and he’ll be right back.

But Dean hears his voice, tired and human, just outside the door, growing closer. Cas is speaking heatedly with Balthazar, and the doorknob rattles.

“Dean?” Sammy’s calling from the doorway, and then he’s sitting heavily on the edge of the bed, shaking Dean’s shoulder.

Someone’s fingers overlap his—he knows without looking that they belong to Castiel—and the light clicks on. Dean withdraws his hand and squints against the glare.

“Dean. Thank god,” Sam says. “We’ve been so worried.”

Dean doesn’t answer right away, just rubs his face and slowly, slowly cracks open his eyes. He’d smile to see Sam so young again if the sight didn’t break his heart. Sam has pronounced circles beneath his eyes; he probably hasn’t slept since Dean vanished. His hand is large and warm on Dean’s shoulder.

“You look like hell,” Dean croaks. Sam bites out a relieved laugh.

From the corner of his eye, Dean sees Cas standing with his back to the wall. He’s got on a loose pair of gray sweat pants and a black AC/DC t-shirt Dean recognizes as one of his. His hair is more disheveled than usual, and he’s got a sickly pallor, like he just bled out, but he’s standing. Cas is alive. He’s looking at Dean, but Dean can’t look at him.

“Hey, Cas," he says. The words come out rough, like they’re scraped from his throat.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Well, this is touching,” Balthazar pronounces from the doorway.

“Where were you?” Sam asks.

How can he even begin to describe the house, or Sam’s kids, or the slide of Cas’s lips? He shuts his eyes and lolls his head from side to side.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, finally. Balthazar makes an irritated noise.

“We can talk about it later,” Sam says. He smiles at Dean again, pats his arm, and gets up. “I guess we’ll let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” he mutters into his pillow.

“I'm glad you’re home,” Sam says. The word hurts.

Cas lingers after Sam leaves the room, quietly, beside the bed. Dean has to remind himself that he can’t reach out for Cas anymore, can’t just touch him despite the proximity. This is the _real_ Castiel, not a fabrication cobbled out of Dean’s half-formed desires. Dean doesn’t have to cut his arm or ask him questions to determine if it’s genuinely him. He just knows, like he knows these are his sheets, his skin, his tears slipping hot and unbidden from his eyes.

Cas lays a hand on Dean’s forehead, but it only makes him shake harder.

“Go away, Cas,” he moans into his pillow.

Cas leaves, and Dean does not feel better. The loneliness is suffocating. It crushes in on him from all sides, so he draws his knees up toward his chest and curls in on himself. He hugs his knees with his arms. He can’t breathe and isn’t sure he wants to.

+

He sleeps all day. He has no idea what time it is when he wakes up. The hunger is back, rearing up, and urges him out of bed. He doesn’t go into the bathroom, doesn’t brush his teeth, doesn’t look at himself in the mirror. He shuffles to the closet and picks through his clothes, brushing a hand along the neat line of shirts.

The ring catches his eye. He stills, staring at it with a momentary flare of happiness in his chest. The feeling crescendos, and then it slides inevitably into grief. He wrenches the ring from his finger, twisting it painfully over his knuckle. He pitches it across the room, into a dark corner, and doesn’t hear it land. His finger throbs in its wake.

He doesn’t put on new clothes, leaves the closet wide open, and walks barefoot to the kitchen. Sam gets up as soon as Dean walks in, laying aside the book he was reading. He comes close but doesn’t touch him.

“What can I get you?” he asks.

“Balthazar still here?” Dean asks. His voice is scratchy. He fumbles the coffee pot.

“I told him to give me a few days,” Sam says. He grabs a clean mug and pours Dean a cup. Dean is too tired to protest and falls into a chair.

“What’s he want?” he asks.

"He needs to rescue a soul,” Sam says, sliding the mug to Dean and joining him at the table. “Apparently, the prophet Elijah’s trapped in a fireball. Balthazar wants to find it, release him, then hitchhike a ride back upstairs.”

“But he’s still got his grace,” Dean says between sips. They scald and bless his throat.

“Claims he’s not welcome,” Sam says with a shrug. “Banishment or something because of that soul he bought, but if he can get in...”

“With a prophet’s soul in tow, it’d be stupid to kick him back out again,” Dean concludes and tries to adjust a phantom pair of glasses. He pinches the bridge of his nose instead. “Assholes are low in number.”

“I guess,” Sam says.

“So, am I doing this?”

“Do you want to?” Sam asks. It’s the first time he’s asked since Dean was healed.

What he _wants_ is to go back to bed, to pull the covers up over his head and sleep. There is a ghost sensation on his finger, in the shape of a ring that never really existed. He shuts his eyes and drinks.

“Dean?” Sam says.

“No,” Dean answers, mostly breath. “You handle it.” He exhales into the cup, and the heat from the coffee’s surface warms his face.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam offers. It’s just like him to ask.

Dean drops his forehead into his palm and shakes his head, covering his eyes. He wonders how much Balthazar said to either of them, if Sam knows about Cas, if Cas knows Dean just spent three months acting out their very own romantic comedy. Sam would tell him if he asks, but Dean's not sure he wants to hear Sam summarize his life like case notes.

After a minute, he feels a plume of sadness rise in his chest again, swift like floodwaters he can’t contain, and he stands abruptly.

_You couldn’t have prevented the river from flooding any more than you could have stopped the rain._

“I’m going back to bed,” he says and does, locking the door behind him. He fishes a bottle of whiskey from his dresser drawer and drinks until his eyes close. The rest of the coffee goes cold on the nightstand.

+

Dean sleeps with an arm curled around his own side and dreams of Vermont.

He walks through the house. It’s empty: just bare walls and no furniture. He walks through each guest room, recalling a pair of yellow lamps, a Kansas license plate. He opens each door, steps inside for a moment, then closes it behind him as he leaves. One by one, the rooms dissolve. Though he doesn’t look, he knows the doors are gone.

In the kitchen, only the island remains. It crumbles when he lays a hand on the surface. He rubs the grit between his fingers. The sink glints warmly in the morning sunlight, but there is nothing beyond the window, no garden and no orchard. It’s stark white. When he goes upstairs, the steps shift and crack beneath his feet.

The upstairs is naked too, just the wooden floor and pale walls, except the photograph on the mantle remains. He reaches for it tentatively, expecting the frame to break, but it’s a solid weight in his hands. Their faces are unchanged, smiling and happy. He strokes the image of Cas’s face once, then lays the frame face down and turns away.

Their bedroom is untouched. Everything is in place: the white bed, the wooden nightstands, the travel magazine Dean flipped through last. He draws back the sheets and lies down, placing a palm over the spot where Cas should be. Maybe he can stay here until morning. He presses down on something small and hard.

He lifts the blanket and sees it, a small black object on the white sheet. It’s Cas’s wedding ring. Dean never saw it off of Cas’s hand, so he studies it now, rubs a thumb over the black finish. It’s nicked from daily wear. He shines it with the edge of the sheet and catches an inscription on the inside. It’s just one word, “bluebird.” He laughs at his own sentimentality, at the veiled Led Zeppelin reference, and curls his fingers around the ring when his eyes begin to water.

He closes them.

+

When he wakes up again, Sam and Balthazar are gone. Cas is sitting quietly at the table when Dean shuffles past for food. He opens the cabinets and gets out a jar of peanut butter, a box of crackers. He eats at the counter, next to the sink, deliberately keeping his back to Cas.

This isn’t his fault, but Dean is angry with him. That makes no sense, because this was all Dean’s doing. He remembers stalking into the storage room, angrily grabbing at supplies, arranging them in a circle around his legs where he sat on the concrete. If Sammy wouldn’t let Dean out of the bunker, he was going to make himself useful, and that meant doing anything he could to save Cas from dying.

He’d tried praying with no success, wasn’t even sure the assholes were listening. They were out of options and time. Cas only had days left, by the looks of him: he could barely stand, wasn’t eating, surviving by the tenuous grace still clinging to him.

Touching Dean’s soul was no good—it was too risky, because Dean had only just been restored to humanity—and Cas refused to use Sam’s. He didn’t posses enough control to guarantee Sam wouldn’t be hurt or killed. Worse, Cas feared it might not work. He had so little grace left, it might only recharge what remained, not rebuilt it.

“I won’t sacrifice your life,” Cas told them, staunchly, when Sam suggested it. Dean knew, then, that Cas had resigned himself to die.

“Well, if you’re gonna kill yourself being stubborn, I can stubbornly save your feathery ass,” Dean snapped and stormed out of the room.

If the angels wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t send someone on their own, then Dean was dragging one of those sonsofbitches down here by their primary feathers, rubbing their devout noses in it. Maybe once they _saw_ Cas—

Hell, he’d beg, if he had to, if it came to that.

He remembers the plastic evidence bag, reaching in to pinch the feather between two fingers. It looked like any angel feather he’d ever seen, long and dark, blade shaped. With a lighter, he’d singed the edge.

He thinks of another feather, found outside a motel room in Delaware: the same shape, the same color, the same evidence bag. With a mirthless laugh into his coffee, he realizes that he’d been trying to remind himself all along. Christ, he’d even conjured _mothmen_.

If he looks at Cas, he’ll feel things for him that belong to someone else, someone who doesn’t exist, so he stands silently at the sink and drinks his coffee. He pours himself a second cup and drinks that. He stands there long after the coffee is gone, fingers curled into the porcelain sink, until Cas rises with a sigh and leaves the kitchen.

When it’s safe to turn around, Dean retreats to the cave-like dark of his room. He leaves the lights off, but he doesn’t sleep, just lies on his back with his eyes trained on the ceiling.

+

Sam’s gone a week, but he leaves plenty of food in the fridge. Dean survives on peanut butter and whiskey. He finds an unopened bag of marshmallows and throws it away with a sob. He showers twice and doesn’t change his sheets. There’s grit from the floor where he puts his feet. He pulls back on the same clothes every day. They grow loose and waxy.

He spends the hours on his stomach, tracing patterns blindly into the pillowcase; on his back, memorizing imperfections on the walls and ceiling.

There are stretches of time where he’s fine. He sits up, reads, eats, takes a piss, watches TV. He even laughs out loud a couple times, but then he notices something, anything: the youth in his hands, the glare of artificial light. He glances to his bedroom door, expecting to see Kansas sitting there, and that’s when it hits him: he’s in Lebanon, at the bunker, and he’ll never see that house again.

Once he reaches that point, it might as well be an event horizon. There’s no back tracking. He can only suffer his lip quivering, endure the hot embarrassment of tears on his face, and wait for it to pass. The sobs sound otherworldly, drummed up from a hurt place deep, deep in his chest. They echo in the room, until they don’t sound like his sobs any longer.

It takes four days before he falls asleep in the middle of the bed, makes himself move the pillow over. But every morning, he wakes up back on his side and rolls over into an empty space, wakes with his own arm curled around his side—for a split second, he thinks it’s Cas’s, only his back is cold. Cas isn’t lying next to him. Dean tries to remind himself that it never really happened. That wasn’t his body, and it wasn’t Cas. It’s best to think of it like a dream. It was just a dream, a freaking nightmare. It’s no different than Carmen.

Except, it is different, because Carmen never existed, and Cas is asleep down the hall.

His thoughts drift to Kate, to her modest two-bedroom house in New Jersey. He wonders where she came from, if she was an amalgamation of all of the people they’ve helped over the years, or if by some chance she’s actually living. He thinks of asking Sam to borrow his laptop, run a search on her name. He knows enough about her past that he should be able to find her. He knows her brother died in a car accident around this time. But when he gets to the bedroom door, he hears Cas shuffling past to the bathroom and turns away, his drive diminished. He sits on the edge of the bed and drinks.

+

By the time Sam comes back, Dean has stopped crying at random intervals, and the bottle of whiskey is long empty. It’s tipped over on the floor beside the bed.

Instead of sadness, he feels nothing when he thinks about Vermont. It appears tiny in his mind, like an old-fashioned television screen at the end of a long hallway. The picture flashes and loses vibrancy. He wishes it would go out.

He reads books without absorbing a word. It’s like a foreign language. He mouths the syllables, but they make no sense. He abandons the unfinished books in a stack on his nightstand.

His phone is dead. He stashes it in a drawer.

Sam is patient with him at first, allows Dean to eat in his room, and doesn’t say anything about the state of it. But after another two days, he comes into Dean’s bedroom without knocking and flips on the light, wrinkling his nose.

“Dude, it reeks in here,” he says and pulls the sheet from Dean’s legs. He picks up the empty bottle and throws it into the trash.

Dean flips him off and folds a pillow around his head.

“No," Sam says, snatching it from his hands. “You’re going to get up, and you’re getting a shower, and I’m getting some decent food into you.”

He manhandles Dean out of bed, shoves him into the bathroom, and starts the shower.

“I’m washing your sheets,” he says. “And your clothes. Fork ’em over."

Dean lets the shower pound and pound on his back, until his back is as numb as he feels. He scrubs like he can scrub the grief from his skin and his face is overly warm. Sam reaches in to shut the water off and hands Dean a towel, which Dean doesn’t take, so Sam rubs it over his hair, wraps it awkwardly around his waist, and guides Dean out of the shower.

“I’m fine,” Dean says, blinking back to himself.

Sam looks at him pityingly and points to a clean pile of clothes on the counter.

“I’m making breakfast,” he says. “I have bacon this time.”

Dean thinks of a picture in a photo album, of himself flipping off the camera. The numbness shifts. Some of the grief seeps back through, black and slick like oil, like Leviathan blood, and he's choking on it. His eyes are awash, and he’s crying, sobbing in the bathroom while Sam looks on helplessly.

"Please talk to me,” Sam begs.

But Dean gasps, gathers his composure, and swipes at his eyes. The grief settles and skims over.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he says.

“Dean—” Sam says and reaches out his arms, like he wants to embrace him, only Dean walks him backwards out the bathroom door and slams it.

+

Dean avoids any room Cas is in. He’s too afraid to look at him, so he holes up in the library, with a book on his lap that he doesn’t read. The bunker vibrates from the thrum of the computer, from the HVAC system pumping in dry, recycled air. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzz and hum.

He runs his fingers over the book’s cover, along its yellowed page edges, over the raised lettering on the spine. The cover is red; the text is in Greek. But he keeps it on his lap as something to hold, and he rubs a little spot of wear onto a right hand page.

Dean stays there all day, until Cas discovers him sitting there. He smells like Dean’s soap, has on another of Dean’s t-shirts. Dean looks at his chest, at the faded lettering, but never his eyes.

“Dinner is ready,” Cas offers. “I heated up leftovers.”

Dean has no appetite. His stomach is empty, but he’s got no drive to eat. He doesn’t answer, just moves his head to let Cas know he heard, lets the book fall.

Cas stoops to retrieve it, presses it into Dean’s hands, only Dean can’t bear to have Cas touch him. He doesn't want Cas’s pity. He stands abruptly, throws the book by its front cover against the wall while Cas looks on mutely, then stalks out of the library, down the long hall to his room, gasping for breath like he’s out of water. He slams the door behind him before dissolving.

He wakes feeling stiff all over, cheek suctioned to the concrete, hip aching from sleeping on it. He drags himself to his feet and stumbles into bed, falling onto it, not bothering with the sheets. If he dreams, he doesn’t remember it.

+

“Dean, what did I do?” Cas asks the next afternoon. He folds himself onto the opposite side of the couch.

Dean stares uselessly at the television. He hasn’t adjusted the channel, just watches whatever Sammy had on last. It’s the History Channel, some show about aliens. He’d laugh out loud about how ridiculous these eye-witnesses are, thinking cattle mutilation is extraterrestrial in origin, but there isn’t any laughter in his chest.

Dean stares at the television, and Cas stares at Dean. He repeats his question.

“Nothing,” Dean promises quietly. “You did nothing.”

He's hurting Cas, and he hates himself for hurting Cas, and he hates himself more for loving Cas in the first place.

“Was it Lisa?” Cas asks. Dean doesn't even flinch at her name. “Is that why you don’t want to talk about it?”

So Balthazar didn’t tell them. Dean looks at Cas then, properly, for the first time since he came back. Cas is drawn and sickly. He’s too thin, eyes sunken, with thick shadows underneath, just this side of death.

Dean doesn’t answer, just drops his eyes again, but he sucks in a relieved breath.

“Is it alright if I sit here with you?” Cas asks.

This isn’t the Cas he loved, but he loves Cas, and he can’t do this to him. None of this is his fault. Dean nods that he can stay, even though his eyes sting, and a heaviness descends in his heart. Cas settles in beside him, closer, pulling a wool blanket over their legs. It’s scratchy and warm. They aren’t touching and it hurts, but Cas is here. That is familiar and comforting, in its way. He’s _alive_ , which is all that matters. Dean doesn’t know what Balthazar had to do to ensure that, but he’s grateful.

They watch the rest of the alien program in silence. Another episode comes on. Cas gets up without a word halfway through and comes back with tea. He passes a mug to Dean, who smiles brokenly.

“Thanks,” he says and drinks despite the grassy flavor.

The episode documents abductions of people who report seeing aliens as bright, blue lights. Dean snorts at one eye witness after another.

“They’re seeing angels," Cas says, fascinated. He tilts his head as he speaks, keeps his hands neatly laced around the mug. “It’s strange what humans choose to believe.”

“Yeah,” Dean murmurs and covers his bare ring finger.

He drifts off during the third episode and wakes with his head on Cas’s shoulder. He breathes indulgently against Cas’s shirt, rubbing his face against it for a moment before he realizes where he is. He jerks upright, grinding the sleep out of his eyes, and angles his head down. His cheeks are flaming.

“I don’t mind,” Cas says kindly.

But Dean does. He looks at Cas sadly and wishes he’d asked Sam to get him another bottle of whiskey. His emotions are a live wire. He feels like he might go off at any second, afraid of snapping at Cas for something that doesn’t have to do with him, not really. He wants to drown it.

He nearly excuses himself, goes back to hide in his room, but Cas shifts so that he’s leaning against the armrest, cheek resting in his hand. Dean mirrors him, leaning on the opposite side of the couch. The distance screams between them.

The program goes on, only Dean doesn’t register any of the words. It ends, and something else comes on about World War II. The historic footage is black and white, flecked with static like his memories of Vermont.

“Are you hungry?” Cas asks after a while. Dean blinks a few times and turns to look at him. “I can make you something.”

“You’re gonna cook?”

“You forget,” Cas says stubbornly, “that I acquired basic skills as a sales associate at the Gas-n-Sip.”

“Ah. So’s grilled cheese beyond you?” Dean asks.

“I can try,” Cas says and smiles slightly. He pushes the blanket from his legs and puts both feet on the floor.

“I could hear you,” Dean says without thinking, before Cas can stand up, “when I was asleep. That was you, wasn’t it.”

Cas leans across the couch to lay a hand on Dean’s arm. Dean can’t help but look at it. It’s strange that he thinks of Cas’s hands as beautiful. They’re strong and calloused; there’s nothing delicate in their composition, but he thinks they’re beautiful all the same. With his eyes, he traces the raised network of veins that run from Cas’s knuckles to his wrist. He knows what Cas’s hands feel like all over him and feels guilty because of it.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to get you out myself,” Cas tells him. “I thought I would be able to reach you, to help you understand that you were in an illusion, but I hardly had enough strength to make the connection. By the time you heard me, I was too weak to maintain it.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“You’re hungry,” Cas says. “We can talk more in the kitchen."

But they don't talk. Dean follows quietly and sits at the table, flicking his thumbs against one another, while Cas takes a loaf of bread from the refrigerator, opens a drawer for a butter knife. Once, seeing Cas acting so human would've been jarring. Now, it’s all Dean can do not to break down.

They’re out of cheese, so Cas makes peanut butter sandwiches. He spreads the peanut butter evenly over the slices of white bread, and cuts the sandwiches into precise quarters. He arranges them on a single plate that he sets between them and smiles at Dean from across the table. Their fingers brush inadvertently when Dean takes his first sandwich; he’s careful not to touch Cas’s hand when they reach for seconds and thirds.

Cas looks better when they’re finished eating. His skin is still ashen, and his hair needs to be brushed, but his eyes are brighter. With a little maintenance, he’d look pretty good. Dean thinks of the bag in the Impala’s glove box.

Cas is still bumming around in sweats. It’s not like Cas owned clothes besides what Jimmy had on and the hand-me-downs Dean gave him. He thinks of offering to allow Cas to take anything he wants from Dean’s closet, but knowing Cas, he’d be fine wearing Dean’s clothing indefinitely and never bother about fit. No. As soon as Cas is feeling better, they’ll go out and get Cas some new things, clothes that actually belong to him.

“This was good,” he compliments, pointing to the empty plate. It makes Cas light up. Dean wipes his mouth on a paper towel and balls it up, knocks him playfully on the shoulder when he gets up.

+

They meander back to the couch and spend a quiet afternoon together. Dean doesn’t fall asleep on Cas again, but he slides over and allows Cas to sit close enough that their legs touch when he laughs at something on the television. The sporadic contact makes a place deep inside of Dean ache, but Cas seems to like it. He looks at Dean every once in a while, like he’s checking to see if Dean is laughing too.

If Cas’s friendship is what he can have, he’ll take it. He can’t afford to read more into Cas’s actions than that. He doesn’t shift over, doesn’t lean closer, stuck in limbo until Sam comes home and calls them for dinner.

He brought home take out: a rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and beans. He serves Dean an extra helping of vegetables, which Dean eats reluctantly and only because it eases the tension around Sam’s eyes. Dean slips Cas his second piece of chicken and looks enviously at the skin.

He wastes time ticking over details of his hunts with Kate, wondering what the hell his brain cooked up. He thinks of the series of borrowed girls and prom dresses. He entertains the fleeting memory of himself singing karaoke, the sense of freedom it had afforded. So he mapped that onto a famous cryptid, gave it a few nights out on the town? Awesome.

That night, he stays up late reading, until his eyes close every other sentence and the book falls onto his chin. He dreams of Cas, of walking through the orchard, of tumbling over and over in white sheets.

He wishes he couldn’t dream.

+

After three days of TV and peanut butter for lunch, a spot of pink is visible on Cas’s cheeks. He’s eating more, and he’s able to stand for longer periods. The shadows beneath his eyes are diminished, like he’s finally gotten a full night of sleep.

His appearance is still a wreck. Over coffee, Dean’s hand is halfway to Cas’s head before he thinks about what he’s doing; he hesitates before allowing his fingers to skim over Cas’s hair, but trying to tame it is useless. Cas’s hair is haphazard and a little wild, just like him. Dean thought it might be painful to touch Cas again, that it would trigger resentment and anger over what he’s lost, but it’s nice to touch him in some capacity. Cas still looks disheveled, but he seems pleased by Dean’s attention. They lock eyes as Cas presses closer into Dean’s hand. He smiles. Dean is fixated by his mouth, clenches his teeth, and makes a final pass over his hair.

“I should call you Harry Potter,” he remarks and removes his hand.

“We have many similarities,” Cas says thoughtfully, and Dean watches, amused, as Cas works through them in his head.

That afternoon, he goes out to the garage and digs around Baby’s glove compartment, pulls out the bag, and marches it inside.

“Here,” he says and shoves it at Cas, then stands back with his arms crossed over his chest. Cas opens the bag and catalogs its contents, blinks, and looks at Dean curiously.

“I got all that a while ago,” Dean explains, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The first time you were...” He makes an aborted nod toward Cas’s body.

“Human,” Cas supplies.

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says genuinely.

Dean tries to smile. Cas keeps the bag with him when they retire to the couch for a video game war, which Sam interrupts with salad. Dean rubs his sore thumbs while he picks at chunks of iceberg lettuce and slides his half-eaten plate to Cas once he clears his.

“Not hungry,” he lies and watches as Cas all but inhales the second helping.

Dean makes a sandwich after Sam goes to bed and eats it in the dark kitchen, then makes a second one and walks it to Cas’s room. Cas is still awake. There’s a stripe of light underneath his door. Dean doesn’t knock, just shoulders the door open. Cas is sitting up in bed. He’s shirtless, legs under the covers, turning the pages of an art book. Dean considers that Cas is older than the earliest piece of art cataloged, older than the hills that surround the bunker, venerable and wise and faced with the inevitable end of his life. The years he’ll live as a human, his time with Dean— they're just a glitch on the spectrum of Castiel’s existence; but Dean is selfishly, greedily ecstatic that Cas is here with him, that he’s mortal, that he survived.

Cas lifts his head long enough to catch Dean’s eyes, smile in welcome, then returns his attention to the art book. The page is opened to a worn marble statue, its surface pitted with age, face broken. Cas presses his fingers to the image, then touches his own face. Dean steps farther into the room and closes the door behind him, holds out the plate.

Cas’s room is simple. He hasn’t personalized it, probably sees it as a place to rest and nothing more, but Dean sees him in the bare walls, the neatly folded pile of clothing on a chair beside the bed.

“Thought you might be hungry,” he says, setting it in on the nightstand beside a stack of books.

“Sam’s idea of dinner isn’t as satisfying as the ones you prepare,” Cas confides.

“Well, Sam’s are a lot healthier,” Dean admits. "Just don’t tell him I said that.” He lowers himself to the edge of the bed, a safe distance from Cas’s legs, and claps his hands together. “So. Art, huh?” he asks.

“It’s beautiful,” Cas says with a slow nod. “Your species is violent and destructive, yet it is capable of remarkable creation.”

“Thanks,” Dean snorts. “So, are you—uh, one of us? Officially?"

"I’m human now,” Cas says.

“The grace?”

Cas shakes his head. “Balthazar took it from me,” he explains. “If I’d torn it out myself, I would’ve been remade. I wouldn’t remember any of this.”

“Is there anything left?”

“I can feel the imprint of my own grace—a small piece of it must have been left behind—but it lacks power. However, it should be enough, when I die, to grant me passage to Heaven.”

Something twists painfully in Dean’s chest at the implication of Cas’s death, the fact that Cas is already thinking about going home. He pictures him graceless, soulless, surviving the wilds of Purgatory.

“That’s a long time from now,” Dean says. He hopes it comes out reassuring. “You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you.”

“And you?” Cas asks. “What do you plan to do now?”

Dean fingers the stitching on Cas’s quilt: blue and white squares with caricatures of animals. It’s meant for a child’s bedroom. Dean has no idea whether Cas found it in storage here in the bunker, or if Sam picked it up on a trip into town. Dean laughs at the thought of Sam in a thrift shop, buying a kid’s quilt for a guy who’s literally older than dirt.

“What is it?” Cas asks with a frown.

“Nothing,” Dean says. He takes half of the sandwich he brought for Cas and tears a chunk from it.

“I thought you brought that for me,” Cas accuses, snatching up the second half before Dean has a chance.

“I’ll make you another one,” Dean promises. They’ll be eating a lot of midnight PBJs if Sammy keeps up kitchen duty.

“I like the raspberry jam the best so far,” Cas declares, licking a spot from his upper lip. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Dean shrugs and takes another bite, speaks with a full mouth. “Never really imagined a life after hunting," he says.

“The life expectancy is low,” Cas says. He chews, turning the page to study the likeness of a horse.

“Cas—” Dean starts. _I’m sorry about all this_ , he wants to say. _You deserve better_. “If you need anything...” he offers. It’s open ended. He wills Cas to understand.

“I need another sandwich,” Cas replies. Dean rolls his eyes but goes to make another plate. They eat them while Dean offers mock critique of the paintings in Cas’s book, and Cas recalls facts about the artists: apparently Vermeer’s heaven is a brightly lit artist’s studio, but no one’s been able to get da Vinci to pick up a brush in two hundred years.

“How do you stand it?” Dean asks after a while. Cas gives him a questioning look, so Dean settles back against the headboard, keeps a foot on the floor. He swallows and stares at a water stain on the ceiling. “How are you not going nuts, being trapped here?”

Cas closes the book and lays it aside, stretching out alongside Dean, pulling the covers up to his chest. He lies on his side, arm tucked under his pillow, and thinks for a while.

“I never experienced humanity,” he says. “I never needed sleep or rest. I never knew what it meant to be hungry or thirsty. Sometimes, I perceived echoes of those sensations from my vessel, but they weren’t mine.” Cas clears his throat. “Now, I hurt and I feel and I _want_.”

He lifts his head from the pillow, catches Dean’s eyes, and smiles warmly. “I understand why my father commanded us to love you.”

Dean’s heart beats into his throat, and his pulse grows rapid, but he stays still. It would be simple to lean down, to kiss the corner of Cas’s mouth, to press Cas backwards against the ugly quilt and re-learn (learn for the first time) the curves of his body, let himself be held by something strong and ancient. Cas would let him, would kiss Dean in return. He’d never leave, if Dean asked; but he doesn’t know if it’s what Cas really wants, so he doesn’t.

“Did you get enough to eat?” he says instead.

Cas’s smile slides into something more closely resembling a scowl.

“You’re blushing,” he observes. He fingers the edge of his pillowcase. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“I’m just tired.” Dean scrubs at his cheek with a fist, sniffs, nods to the door. “We should get some sleep.”

“Thank you for the sandwiches,” Cas offers.

“No problem,” Dean says. “You’ve got the breakfast shift.”

Cas rests a hand on Dean’s forearm and squeezes. “I’ll do my best,” he says. The warmth is back in his voice.

Dean has to tell him about Vermont, but he doesn’t know how. Cas deserves to know, to understand why Dean acted the way he did when he first came back, why he’s acting this way now, but he has no idea where to start.

The tension must be apparent in his face, because Cas pulls his hand back and asks, “Dean, what’s wrong?”

Dean just shakes his head.

“You can still talk to me,” Cas insists, “even though I’m human.”

“I know,” Dean says. He never thought of himself as the praying type, but it’s lonely to know Cas won’t be able to hear him if he does. It was easier to talk to him that way, but he doesn’t want to talk to anyone else. He laughs helplessly. “A Vulcan mind meld would come in handy right about now.”

"Is it about where you were?” Cas asks.

Dean is a second before replying. “Yeah,” he says, low.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, I do,” Dean protests. “I just...don’t know where to start.”

“You need sleep," Cas says. “Tell me tomorrow.”

Dean nods at his lap. He wants to stay, knows Cas would welcome it, but he’s not sure what’ll happen if he does. He elbows Cas gently in the ribs and climbs off the bed, picks up the plate. He turns it in unsteady hands, framed by the open doorway.

“Night,” he says.

“Goodnight,” Cas says and switches off the lamp.

Dean’s hands are still shaking when he closes the door to his own room.

+

The next morning, Cas’s hair is washed and combed, and he smells like whatever body spray Dean threw into the drugstore bag when he eases open the door to Dean’s bedroom and comes inside. Dean is lying awake on top of the covers. He’s still got on his clothes from last night and needs a shower. Cas hovers in his doorway like a bug around a porch light.

“Hey," Dean says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He cracks a grin. “You look good.”

Cas smiles and dips his chin. “I made breakfast,” he announces. “The eggs are runny, but the toast is passable.”

Dean holds his breath at the mention of toast. All he sees is Cas placing rounds of French bread into a large glass dish, pouring the custard over them. He can almost smell the oranges and vanilla.

“Great,” Dean replies, flinging an arm over his eyes as he heaves a breath. He’s not going to fall apart in front of Cas. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

He expects Cas to leave, but Dean hears him come further into the room, the swish of his pants as he walks. Dean lifts his arm enough to see Cas kneel to move a pile of books aside. He plucks something from the floor and studies it in his palm.

"Where did you get this?” he asks, low and serious.

Dean’s throat closes up when he realizes what Cas is holding. He swallows hard and doesn’t answer.

Cas sits on the edge of the bed, turning the ring over and over on his palm. When he speaks again, his voice is still low, but it’s softer.

“An angel’s blade carries the wavelength of the angel who created it, an impression of that angel’s grace. That’s what gives the blade its power.”

He turns the ring over on his palm again and strokes his finger around the edge.

“This ring bears my grace,” he says.

[ ](http://imgur.com/Wszoyxn)

He meets Dean’s eyes with the unspoken question. Dean should tell him to get out, to forget it, to take that ring as far away from Dean as he can, but he doesn’t do any of those things. He looks at Cas long and hard, wishing he could lie, pull some bullshit story out of his ass, but his mind goes blank. Cas continues to stare at him, his expression guarded and cautious.

Dean's mouth is dry like cotton, and his hands shake when he opens his mouth. In just three words, he tells Cas everything.

“It wasn’t Lisa.”

Cas’s hands still and close around the ring, like a flower closing. He nods in confirmation.

A horrible silence stretches between them. Cas doesn’t touch him and doesn’t try to comfort him, just sits quietly for a long time with the ring between his hands. The longer the silence goes on, the more doubt steals in, extinguishing any hope Dean clung to. Cas doesn’t want him. He chills to his core and begins to shake.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably, because there is nothing else to say. He rolls over and presses his face into the mattress. It’s hard to breathe, but he stays like that. The bed smells like his skin and fabric softener, and nothing like Cas.

Eventually, Cas speaks. “Breakfast is getting cold,” he says. Dean shudders when the mattress rises as Cas stands up. He leaves the ring on the nightstand, right where Dean can see it, and closes the door quietly behind him.

But Dean doesn’t get up. He drags the sheet over his body like a shroud.

+

He feels disconnected from time when he wakes up again. He tries to fall back asleep but can’t. Every sound is the promise of Cas’s footsteps, but Cas doesn’t come back to Dean’s room, not all morning. Sam refused Dean’s request for more liquor, and he's not desperate enough to chug a bottle of cough syrup. Knowing Sammy, he probably took preventative measures and already removed it from Dean’s bathroom.

The ring is still where Cas left it on the nightstand. Sam had the sense not to ask about it when he came in to grab the laundry, but he didn’t move it either. Dean doesn’t have the stomach to touch the thing. He turns his back to it for a while. But after the third time he rolls over and catches the metal gleaming despite the low light, he heads to the garage.

Baby likes it here, stored indoors in a temperature-controlled environment, out of the wind and rain. She deserves it after so many hard years on the road. He lies down across her front seat, letting his legs stick out the driver's side door.

“Baby, what do I do?” he whispers.

He shouldn’t have told Cas anything. It would’ve been better to let him go on thinking that Dean was broken up over Lisa. He doesn’t want Cas coming to him out of guilt or misplaced obligation. Why didn’t he just flush the ring and be done with it?

At some point, Sam climbs into the back seat and leans both arms on top of the seat in front of him. He looks down at Dean over his forearms. He’s got on a blue flannel shirt, and his hair is hanging in his eyes.

“What?” Dean snaps and sits up. He rubs his sleeve on the dash like he’s cleaning away dust.

“What’d you say to Cas?”

“Why?” Dean asks quickly, whipping his head around. “What’d he say?”

“That’s just it: he won’t say anything,” Sam says. “He’s been sitting at the kitchen table staring at a plate of toast for two hours.”

“How is that my fault?”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “You tell me,” he says.

Dean scrubs the heel of his left palm down the side of his face and attempts redirection. “How’d it go with Balthazar?” he asks. “Asshole make it back upstairs?”

“Don’t do that,” Sam says firmly.

“Do what? Ask how a case went?”

“Avoid my question."

“Look,” Dean says darkly. He exhales and wraps his hand around the steering wheel so hard it hurts, lets his grip go slack, feels the ache drain away. "I told him it wasn’t Lisa. That’s all, okay?”

“Oh,” Sam says. A moment later, he says again, knowingly, “ _Oh_.”

Dean’s face heats up. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he mutters.

“It might help.”

“Yeah?” Dean snaps his head around to stare down Sam, who looks at him through imploring, annoyingly soft eyes. “What do you want me to tell you? That I was happy? That you were married with kids and a freaking station wagon? That Cas was fine? That I woulda stayed if—”

Dean can almost taste the misery in his tone, which wavers on the last word. He blinks and stops talking when a tear spills down his cheek. He rubs it away angrily.

“So...Cas?” Sam asks slowly. He raises both eyebrows hopefully, but Dean drops his gaze to his lap.

"What about him?” he asks. His voice flatlines.

Sam doesn’t say anything right away, just nods quietly, exhales in what sounds like disbelief, maybe relief. “I guess that’s why you spent two weeks refusing to be in the same room with him,” he says.

Dean doesn’t respond. After a minute, Sam clears his throat.

“How’d he find out?”

“Does it matter?" Dean asks tiredly. He palms the steering wheel and looks out the car door. He thinks of a narrow garage with red siding, of Baby snug within her vinyl cover, of a wall-sized map dotted with push pins. He thinks of Cas silently holding the wedding ring.

“Yeah, actually,” Sam says. “I think it matters a whole hell of a lot.”

“It wasn’t real, Sammy. None of it.”

“It could be,” Sam counters. “From what I’ve read, cupids are able to divine whether two people are suited for one another. They can map out a whole future in seconds. In your case, a pocket universe got constructed around your, um…but, yeah, it wouldn’t have been possible if Cas didn’t already feel—”

“Look, he’s not interested,” Dean says, cutting him off.

“Did he say that?”

“No, but—”

“You need to _talk_ to him.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, man, I do,” Dean tells him. “But I’m begging you: drop it.”

“You know I don’t care, right?" Sam insists. “I just want you to be happy.”

“People like us don’t get happy endings.”

“Life’s not a book, Dean,” Sam says. “I think we both deserve happiness after everything we’ve been through. And if Cas is what makes you happy, you should be with him.”

Dean huffs noncommittally and touches his ring finger. Sam sighs.

“Did you eat?” he asks.

“I’ll grab something later,” Dean says.

“I’ll make you a sandwich,” Sam offers.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Sam climbs out of the back seat and shuts the door, but leans in the passenger’s window. “Please go talk to him,” he adds.

“Go make my sandwich,” Dean mutters. He tries for gruff, but it comes out teasing. He fights the smile that tugs the corner of his mouth.

Sam reaches a freakishly long arm across the seat and swats Dean’s head.

+

The sandwich is waiting for him on the table. Cas is washing dishes, his head bent over the sink, arms moving methodically as he runs the sponge across a plate, rinses it, sets it to dry, then picks up another.

 _I don’t mind_ , he hears Cas’s voice echo in his head. He replays the way Cas looked at him the night before when he said, _I understand why my father commanded us to love you._

Dean is suddenly tired, so terribly, terribly tired. He wants nothing more than to collapse against Castiel’s body, to let go of his own, to let someone else hold up his weight for a while. If what Sam said is true, if Cas really does feel something for Dean...if there’s a _chance_ , then it’s worth everything. Dean has to try because it’s worth everything.

Before he can change his mind, he walks up behind Cas and places a hand on his waist. Cas gasps softly in response, so Dean leans in and rests his chin on Cas’s shoulder. Cas sets down the plate and the sponge, and turns off the water. He doesn’t move, so Dean doesn’t move. They breathe together for a while.

“Were we happy?” Cas asks, finally.

Dean nods into his neck. The smell of his skin is familiar. Dean kisses the place behind Cas’s ear. It’s smooth, like he knew it would be.

"We had cats,” he says.

Cas turns around and raises his hands to Dean’s face, touching their foreheads together.

“I would like to have a cat with you.”

“Yeah?" Dean says, and when Cas nods, the horrible feeling inside of him dissolves.

Cas kisses him hungrily and on instinct, gripping the back of Dean’s neck so their teeth clash; his teeth are sharp as they drag along Dean’s lips. Cas vacillates between fervor and tenderness, mouth warm and bitter from too much coffee, but Dean licks into it gratefully, presses into Cas up against the sink. Cas wraps Dean in his arms, so Dean knots his fingers in Cas's hair, messing it up again.

 _Sam was right_ , he thinks and moans a little into Cas’s mouth. Jerk’s gonna be so smug about it.

+

It’s minutes later or hours later when Sam strides into the kitchen and finds them like that, their faces flushed and lips kiss-bitten, both of them smiling.

“Hey, Cas, I’m planning to run to the store after I grab a shower. Do we need any—”

Sam’s voice trails off on the last syllable. He clears his throat, embarrassed, maybe a little amused. When he speaks again, his voice is stage-low and professional.

“Actually, you know what? I’m gonna go right now. I feel like steak for tonight. Does anyone else feel like steak?”

Dean lowers his forehead to Cas’s shoulder and groans, but he doesn’t let go, doesn’t step away. In return, Cas holds Dean closer, strokes a hand down his spine, like holding Dean is something he does every day. Sam can see Cas doing that, but Dean doesn’t care.

“Steak is fine,” he says into Cas’s shirt. It comes out muffled.

“Steak it is,” Sam announces brightly and jingles his keys.

“Oh,” Cas says. “We’re out of creamer.”

“I’m on it,” Sam says and beats a steady retreat.

But Dean’s breath catches in his throat at Cas’s words. He thinks of another Cas, another kitchen, only this isn’t a goodbye. He lifts his eyes to Cas’s face and exhales shaky laughter.

“What did you say?” he asks.

“I asked Sam to pick up more creamer,” Cas says. “For coffee,” he adds. “We’re out.”

Dean laughs, and his laughter echoes through the kitchen. He laughs until it’s painful, until tears spring into his eyes because of it, in spite of it, and he’s clutching Cas’s shoulders like he’s afraid to let go. He can do that now, hold Cas just like this, as long as he wants, because he’s real. This is real.

Cas's expression is bemused, but he strokes Dean’s cheek, kisses his mouth. Above them, the lights flicker, quick and irregular, like a firefly.  

 

 

_-the end_

 

[ ](http://imgur.com/TwXpmM7)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope can forgive me handwaving the Mark of Cain (I wrote this pre-s10). Supernatural is so focused on the idea of _choice_ that I felt it was a fair card to play. Since it wasn't the focus of this story, even if you don't agree with that headcanon, I hope you were able to overlook it and enjoy anyway. 
> 
> **Extras**
> 
> Short timestamps follow this chapter, and two longer epilogues are included in the series as standalones.
> 
> [Inspiration board](http://www.pinterest.com/museaway/spn-the-path-of-fireflies/) with reference photos & Cas's maple bacon french toast recipe (which I made at Christmas; it's really good)
> 
> Original art book scene, notes for the unused epilogue, and the house that inspired the B&B [are over here](http://www.museaway.com/tagged/pof). If you'd like to reblog the masterpost, there is a version [with the cover](http://www.museaway.com/post/99000998220/author-museaway-artist-nonexistenz-word-count) and [with the bed pic](http://nonexistenz.tumblr.com/post/100547530172/title-the-path-of-fireflies-author-museaway) by nonexistenz.
> 
> The ridiculously sappy playlist [on 8tracks](http://8tracks.com/museaway/the-path-of-fireflies)
> 
> Please give nonexistenz some love for her [gorgeous art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2389706)
> 
> [tumblr](http://museaway.tumblr.com) • [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/museawayfic)


	7. Timestamp: Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've never made french toast," Cas admits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A note on timestamps:** : I decided to archive timestamps with the parent story, rather than leave them all on Tumblr, so they are easier to find. They will vary in length and style, and I'll continue to post them as I write them! 
> 
> This first timestamp takes place immediately following the fic's ending, just following the kitchen scene.

"I've never made french toast," Cas admits.

He brings his arms tightly around Dean and pulls him into his side. They're lying in Cas's room, on top of the ridiculous animal quilt. Cas's t-shirt is soft against Dean's cheek. He breathes against it, allows himself to curl his fingers into the excess where it gathers at Cas's stomach, teasing it up so his knuckles drag along his skin.  
Cas kisses the crown of his head. He lingers there, the pressure of his mouth causing Dean to smile into his shoulder, bury his face in Cas's neck and hold on.

They've done this a hundred times, and yet they've never done this. Everything is still a first.

Cas ghosts his lips over Dean's forehead, kissing above each eyebrow, the corner of each eye, over both eyelids. He kisses Dean's cheek, his ear, whispers, "I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

Confesses, "I thought I would die and never see you again."

Dean shivers.

"Cas-" he begins, moving his hands underneath Cas's shirt, to his shoulder blades, only Cas swallows his words. He kisses Dean long and deep and tastes like coffee.  
"When you first came back, when I thought you'd been with Lisa, I felt..." He shakes his head, cupping Dean's face in his hands as he searches for the words. "I wished that I had died-"

"Don't," Dean insists.

"That I had _died_ ," Cas continues, pressing his thumb to Dean's lips to silence him, "believing you loved me."

"That's pretty selfish," Dean says and draws him closer. Cas's back is strong and muscled beneath his hands. He greedily maps its breadth with his fingers. There was so much, so many details his brain got right, but this has the aura of being unspoiled.

"It is," Cas agrees before his mouth is on Dean's again: hot and possessive and worshipful. "Very selfish."

Dean kisses him for ages, whimpering when Cas drags Dean's lower lip between his teeth, licks the sting away.

"I thought we'd never..." Cas confesses. "If I'd possessed my grace, I would've erased your memories of her."

"Shady moral territory," Dean says, experimentally rocking their hips together until a groan escapes Cas's mouth. He does it again, and again.

"I couldn't bear to see you hurting," Cas gasps, eyes falling closed, and then Dean understands. He crosses his arms over Castiel's back, presses forward until there's no space between their chests, and he's crying into Cas's mouth.

"It was good, Cas," he chokes. "I wish you coulda seen it."

Cas's hands are warm and reassuring where they cradle his face. He rolls on top of Dean, gently, bearing him into the mattress. Dean feels protected, cherished and loved. His eyes are closed.

Cas rocks against him, lets him break. 

Vows, "I will."


	8. Timestamp: Vermont

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after both Fireflies and Bluebird (but doesn't spoil Bluebird at all)

He intentionally ignores the hunt in Vermont – flat-out ignores it. It’s probably nothing, he tells himself. It’s definitely not worth the cross-country trip. He focuses on cases closer to home, pinpointing a haunting in Nebraska a couple hours north; some fluvial bullshit in Colorado, probably a water spirit. 

Sam finds the Vermont case on his own and brings it to Dean’s attention in the kitchen on a Saturday morning. 

“Surprised you didn’t mention this,” he says between sips of coffee, waving at the laptop. Dean rubs his neck self-consciously and clears his throat until the heat in his face stops, glad Cas is still in bed and can’t see him. He glances at the page Sam’s reading.

“Long drive,” he says.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “You sleep okay?”

“Hey,” Dean says, stretching his arms over his head. “You wanna spend twenty-four hours just to get someplace, that’s cool with me.”

“Can’t remember the last time I was in Vermont,” Sam says offhand, jotting something in a notebook. 

Sam doesn’t know. Why would Sam know? It’s not like Dean told him. He focuses on a a patch of dry skin on the back of his hand and picks at it, swallowing a lump in his throat. 

“Yeah,” he says, almost a croak. “Yeah, it’s been years.”

* * *

Dean starts out driving. Sam camps out in the back seat with Dean’s MP3 player and a grab bag of snacks. Cas sits up front with Dean and fiddles with his phone when he’s not sleeping or providing commentary on obscure roadside attractions. 

”The Mark Twain Cave is located in Hannibal.” 

“For the last time, we’re not stopping.”

The closer they get to Vermont, the stranger he feels about coming back. 

Well. 

It  _feels_  like coming back. 

He was up this way about seven years ago but doesn’t remember much. He doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want it to be different from the way he remembers it, but his foot’s on the pedal and he’s got no choice.

They switch halfway, stopping for food outside Cleveland. Sam drives the second leg with Cas as his co-pilot. Dean’s content to stretch out. He falls asleep when they hit Pennsylvania and wakes up to Cas prodding him awake in a diner parking lot.

“We there?” he grunts, rubbing at his eyes.

“No,” Cas murmurs. He’s crouching in through the open door, one knee on the seat. He lifts Dean’s legs so he can sit down, adjusting Dean’s ankles on his lap and closing the door. “We’re at a restaurant in Whitehall, New York. I asked Sam to stop.”

“How come? We just ate.”

Cas massages Dean’s calf through his pants. “I thought you’d want to be awake,” he says. 

Instinct tells him to laugh it off – he’s fine, this is fine, everything’s  _just fine_  – but he’s touched, utterly fucking touched by the softness in Cas’s voice, by the gravity in his face, the way his fingers press into Dean’s leg with firm reassurance. Grounding him. How the hell does he deserve this?

He kisses Cas before getting out of the car, letting himself have a moment to tuck his face into Cas’s neck and breathe him in. Even though he’s got two drawers of his own stuff, he still insists on stealing Dean’s shirts. This one’s a little loose at the neckline and is gonna look great on their motel room floor. Dean threads his hand in Cas’s hair, tilts his head so Cas can mouth his pulse points. 

Cas holds his hand into the diner, and they fall in across from Sam, who is perusing a lengthy menu. 

“I’m gonna run and wash my hands. If she comes back, get me the turkey sandwich?” he announces, leaving them alone. 

A server brings them water. Dean asks for two cups of coffee and Sam’s sandwich, dropping a hand to Cas’s knee. 

“We should head over to Lake Champlain while we’re here,” he muses once the server has walked away. “It’s supposed to be beautiful.”

 _We were supposed to do that_ , he thinks. And now he can, for real, with Cas. 

Cas lays a hand on top of his. “I’m sure Sam would like that,” he says, dipping his fingers between Dean’s, but he sounds pleased. They drink their coffee that way, quietly. Cas strokes his thumb along the edge of Dean’s hand. 

He holds it as they approach the border between New York and Vermont, squeezing hard when Dean’s breath catches, bringing his other hand to massage Dean’s neck, just at his hairline. Baby rolls over the state line as Dean’s heart pounds out a drum solo, and –

It’s fine. 

He’s fine. He lets out a breath. 

“Are you alright?” Cas asks, stroking the back of Dean’s head, combing fingers through his hair.

Dean looks at him, at the earnest expression on Cas’s face, before settling back into the seat and smiling. He doesn’t know when he started to cry, but there are tear tracks down his cheeks. He doesn’t bother with them, just brings a hand up to cup Cas’s jaw and kisses him as tenderly as a guy can with his little brother’s smirk visible in the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah,” he promises, going in one last time for good measure, happy that Cas’s expression has changed to something sweet, something just for him. “I’m great.”


	9. Timestamp: Locked Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place at an indeterminate time in the future, after they've bought their first house. I think it's in Lawrence. I really have a thing for Lawrence lately.

Cas has locked them out. _Again_. 

Dean rounds on him, zipping his coat to the throat and preemptively rubbing his hands together as the sun sets lower.

“Dammit, Cas—you said you had your keys!”

“They were in my pocket,” Cas snaps, thrusting his hand inside the right-hand side of his coat. His eyes widen as he pulls the pocket inside-out to reveal a large, key-sized tear. “Oh,” he says.

“We need to get you a better coat,” Dean mumbles. Cas’s coat is too thin for winter and it’s getting harder to patch. Dean keeps close to the house, where there’s a one-foot perimeter free of snow. It’ll be dark soon, so he identifies the easiest window to crawl through.

“What about the spare?” Cas asks.

“We used it last time. Guess we could break a window.”

But Cas looks affronted by the suggestion. “We are  _not_  breaking a window, Dean,” he says. It curls as white fog from his mouth. “They were in my pocket when we left. I must’ve dropped them during the walk.”

“You want to retrace the whole neighborhood? We probably walked two miles.”

“What other choice do we have?”

“Fine,” Dean agrees.

They locate the keys within a block, already covered in a dusting of snow. Another half hour and they might not have found them. Cas uses his phone as a flashlight as they hurry back to the house, unlock the door, and strip off their boots. They leave them to dry on the cheap linoleum in the entryway.

The house ain’t grand: two bedrooms, an ancient bathroom with fugly tile, dim living room, and a kitchen you couldn’t begin to call gourmet (more like fast food, and that might be stretching things). It needs paint and elbow grease and grass seed and a new back porch—this one’s rotting off. But it’s theirs.

Cas gets out the tin of sewing needles and thread, and sets to work stitching his pocket. Dean makes a fresh pot of coffee and huddles next to him on the second-third-fourth-hand couch. They don’t have cable yet, so he just watches as Cas makes tight, neat stitches in the worn coat lining.

“You know,” Dean says after a while, warmed through from the coffee. “They have these locks with keypads, so you don’t need an actual key. We’d just have a code you enter.”

Cas nods and ties off the last stitch. He puts the coat and needle and thread aside, takes the mug from Dean’s hand and sets it down. Unfolds the quilt from his old room at the bunker and spreads it over them, tucking himself against Dean’s chest. Kisses his neck. They watch the snow fall.


	10. Timestamp: Pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts with a fish.

It starts with a fish.

They pick one up at Pet World—a wimpy little purple thing that sits at the bottom of its bowl, on a pile of iridescent marbles that Cas selected, and stares. It's just his luck that he gets the fish with a staring problem. Cas sets it on top of the chest of drawers in the living room, next to the lamp. He talks to it whenever he walks by. Dean tries not to roll his eyes too hard. Of course Cas would talk to a fish.

He knows Cas is holding out for a pet of the four-legged, warm-blooded, hairball-producing variety, but a fish is manageable. The bowl is rank, but Cas is happy to change the water by himself. (Dean almost pukes the one time he's in the room for it.) The fish hardly eats anything, is happy to live in tap water, and if it dies—they can have a funeral in the bathroom, flush the thing, and call it a day. And a fish means no allergy pills.

Cas takes pictures of the ugly little thing. It's got gimpy fins and dark, unsettling eyes, but Cas is fond of it. He trails a fingertip over the glass when he gets ready to leave for work. The fish follows his finger.

"Look, Dean," he says, which was cute the first time, but it's been three months and also it's a _fucking fish_.

"See you after work," Dean says, kissing Cas with feeling next to the door. Cas sways into him, looping his arms around Dean's neck, and kisses back. Dean does his damnedest to try and get Cas to play hooky, get naked, spend the day playing tonsil hockey, but Cas pulls away with an apologetic smile and says, "Run the vacuum today."

Dean snorts and holds the door for him. "Yes, dear."

+

Dean doesn't work Sundays, so he lounges on the couch in his boxers and watches mindless TV. He texts Sammy and Charlie. He eats half a box of cereal. He watches the season finale of _Dr Sexy_ and _does not cry_.

Sammy's coming to visit next weekend, so he drags himself up and to the closet to see about their sheet situation.

It's dismal, so after a quick shower and scouring the bedroom floor for clean clothes, he heads to the store. He buys a set of twin sheets for the couch. Sam is too long to fit on it comfortably, but the guy's gotta make do. They're not running a—

They don't have a guest room, is the point.

The spare bedroom is crammed with weapons, books, boxes they haven't unpacked. Cas suggests it as a productive activity every Saturday, which Dean deflects with sex. So far, his avoidance technique has a 100% success rate and Cas ain't exactly complaining.

The fish is watching him when he gets home with a plastic bag from the store and a cheeseburger with all the toppings.

"What?" he snaps, breezing past it toward the kitchen. He eats with his elbows on the kitchen table since Cas isn't home and leaves the sheets on the counter with the receipt, just in case he bought the wrong kind. These should be good. They're 300 thread count, Egyptian cotton, exactly the kind Cas used to have him buy.

When he goes back to the couch, the fish is staring.

"Jesus, you're creepy," he mutters and sets a picture frame in front of the bowl.

Cas removes it with a scowl when he gets home from work and stands at the bowl twice as long as usual and also apologizes to the fish, which makes Dean feel like a world-class jackass. He scuffs his shoe along the vacuum lines in the carpet.

"Sorry," he says, stepping up to kiss the back of Cas's neck. "It's just—it was staring at me again."

"It's a fish, Dean." There's irritation in Cas's voice, but he doesn't hesitate to turn around and kiss Dean before sneaking under his arm.

The fish looks at Dean blankly and opens its mouth.

Dean hears Cas fucking around with the pots and pans a couple seconds later.

"What are you doing?" he calls, moving toward the source of the racket.

"I'm making dinner," Cas says flatly, frowning at a sauce pan.

"Already in the oven," Dean tells him, drinking in the way Cas's expression goes soft, the way he dips his head and smiles at the counter.

"Do I have time for a bath?" he asks, setting his wallet and a pile of coins on the table.

"Depends," Dean says, sidling up to him. He wraps his arms around Cas's waist. "What kind of bath are we talking?"

"A bubble bath," Cas informs him.

"Alright," Dean says, helping Cas out of his coat. "You go relax. I'll call you when it's ready."

When Cas smiles at him, Dean's whole body lights up. Sammy's right. He's so damned whipped.

+

The nameless fish makes it to the ripe old age of nine months, sixteen days. Cas marked it on the calendar. He's oddly stoic as they watch it swirl away, then sighs and walks out of the bathroom with the bowl it called home. Dean hears the kitchen sink running; presumably, Cas is washing the bowl out.

Dean frowns at the toilet. There's a funny sting in his eye. He's probably tired or coming down with something or homesick for the bunker because there's no way he's crying over a goddamned fish.

Except it was _Cas's_ fish, and Cas loved the frigging thing. It sat in a bowl in their living room and stunk up the place and followed Cas's finger every time without fail. And now they've flushed the fish and Cas is washing out its bowl.

He holds his breath, half expecting the bathroom to crumble around him, but it doesn't. He switches off the light and gets the hell out of there.

+

They spend a quiet evening on the sofa. Dean holds Cas in the vee of his legs, arms snug around his chest, chin hooked over his shoulder while Cas reads.

"You're distracting," Cas tells him, turning his face to catch Dean's mouth. For a moment, his heart feels like it's going to swell beyond the capacity of his chest. He kisses Cas so hard he forgets to breathe, drunk on the feeling and pressure of his mouth.

"Let's go to bed," Dean murmurs, catching Cas's lip between his teeth, which earns him a shiver and a whispered, "Alright."

In the cocoon of their bed, nestled in the sheets and Cas moaning underneath him, his grief over the fish is temporarily forgotten.

+

The next time he makes a supply run, he stops by the pet store and peruses the fish selection. They look miserable in their tiny containers. There's a red fish with impressive fins and one that's a deeper purple than their had been, which makes the eyes a lot less noticeable. He almost picks that one up but second guesses himself and leaves the aisle empty handed.

Still, he drove here, so he takes a few minutes to browse the store. He checks out the hamsters and the guinea pigs—there are different kinds: Abyssinian, American Short Hair, Teddy Bear. No teddy bears are coming in his house after the shit he's seen, thank you very much. And the incessant squeaking would drive him batshit crazy.

He shakes his head and breezes through the dog supplies, wondering if Sam's mutt is house trained yet or if it's busy destroying the bunker. He ends in the cat supply aisle, swallowing the sick feeling in his stomach.

He stares at the shelves for a long time, at stacks of bowls, toys with feathers and catnip, stumpy scratching posts. An old, crotchety cat's face swims into focus. He laughs away the memory and picks up the least expensive litter box, tucking it beneath his arm. He grabs two matching bowls and a couple colorful toys and a cardboard scratching pad. He buys something that claims to be The World's Best Cat Litter. He pays for everything, vacillating between giddy and apprehensive, but mostly he feels good.

He knows it's the right decision when Cas gets home from work and sees everything laid out on the coffee table along with a year's supply of Claritin.

His eyes snap up to Dean's and he looks so goddamned happy, so surprised and touched, that Dean could cry.

"Thought we'd go to the humane society on your day off," he croaks, covering his emotion with a grin, but Cas sees right through him.

"You," he says, bearing Dean back onto the couch and kissing him with his coat still on, threading cold hands into Dean's hair. "I—thank you."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He totally cried at _Dr Sexy_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://museaway.tumblr.com) • [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/museawayfic)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art] The Path of Fireflies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389706) by [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/pseuds/Nonexistenz)




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